The Quick and Difficult Life Of Miranda Glomgold
by AmberKendsLacy
Summary: Miranda never really understood why the world hated her Uncle when she was young, but soon time catches up with her and when it's her turn to be hated, can she take it? Or can three really weird men change her life for the better? I own nothing but Miranda
1. Chapter 1

It's strange isn't it, how a familiar place can often bring people back. Like revisiting a favourite memory.

Whether it's their old family home, or their favourite playground.

For me, it's... Well...

On the edge of the St Canard bridge.

...

Yep, basically, all the major problems that I have seem to end in this rather scenic spot for,

oh...Let's say...

My whole life...

I'm not kidding.

You wanna know how I got from a small, innocent, little duckling, into a 25 year old grown duck whose normal past times include standing on the edge of a reaonably high bridge surrounded by St Canard's finest in justice?

You must have a lot of time on your hands... fine, fine.

...

But let's be clear, I'm only telling you this in case anyone else said different, kay?

Okay, let's start at the beginning, and when I reach the end, I'll stop.

...maybe.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a stormy night at Glomgold Manor when the baby was discovered.

Miss Canary was doing her best to clean the Manor all by her lonesome when she heard a strange noise that dragged her attention away from her lack of payment job. She went to the front door were the noise started to see what it was before the master of the Manor did first.

The maid opened the front door, her broom at the ready in case it was any of those charity workers wanting to mooch off Mr. Glomgold.

However, to her surprise, it was actually a small baby duckling in a basket, crying out of fear from the storm. Thinking nothing of how she was left there, Miss Canary picked up the baby and took her inside, holding the baby close to her as she walked up to 's office.

She inspected the baby for a moment and assessed that it must be a girl, judging from the baby's pink blanket it was wrapped in of course.

The baby gurgled and played with the maid's necklace, sticking the golden cross in her mouth. Miss Canary chuckled at the small duckling before taking the cross out of her mouth and stopped as she reached her boss' office.

Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves the maid knocked twice on the door before opening it. The baby gurgled and turned her head to the direction of her saviour and squeaked at the image of a strange old man working at his desk, ignoring the constant ringing of the phones near his desk as he looked up at his only maid with a raised eyebrow at the baby in her arms.

"I was unaware you had children Miss Canary." He said with disinterest as the maid walked closer to his desk and sat in a nearby chair.

"It's not my baby ; I found her outside in the storm. There's a letter with her addressed to you." Miss Canary said calmly, handing the note to her employer, who took it without question, opening it and reading it in complete silence.

He then looked up at the maid and sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his temple before addressing her.

"It's my niece," he sighed before continuing "She will be your responsibility Miss Canary, understood?"

The maid nodded once and left the room in silence, the small duckling in her arms whimpering in sadness as they left the room. The maid frowned at the duckling's behavior as she walked into one of the many sitting rooms before taking a seat in a chair nearby the fireplace before rocking the duckling to sleep.

Poor girl, the maid thought sadly as she held the duckling closer to her, left behind by her parents, the cowards.

Miss Canary was worriedly thinking on where exactly the duckling was going to sleep when she heard a knock on the door.

Grumbling something about the time of night, the maid answered the door, her face reappearing as one of shock as some delivery men carried a cot into the sitting rooms, her employer soon walking in to watch as the delivery men basically changed the sitting room into a nursery.

Flintheart held up his hand in silence as his maid was about to thank him and gave her a sarcastic look.

"You didn't really think I was going to let her sleep on the floor did you?" The maid frowned at his comment as he and the delivery men left her and the duckling in the room alone.

She looked back down at the small duckling, which nuzzled her small head against the nurse's arm and smiled as she lowered her into her new cot.

Was it possible that this small duckling was able to change her tight fisted, no nonsense employer?

She certainly hoped so.

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**Reviews are greatly appreciated!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

Miranda, now seven years old, prowled curiously through the mansion's hallways, inspecting every potted plant that sat despondently on top of small tables, her small green eyes alight in wonder as she pushed the plants leaves away from the plant's base.

Frowning at the lack of whatever she had been looking for, she pulled away from the pot and moved along to the next, unaware of the shadow that slowly crossed over her form.

She pulled away from the pot once again, the look of disappointment resting on her features before she was aware that there someone behind her.

Miranda slowly turned to face the person before her eyes lit up in happiness.

"Miss Canary!" She squealed happily, hugging the maid's knees happily as she jumped up and down, her short black hair bouncing along with her.

The small duckling's nurse smiled at her antics before taking the girl's hand and leading her back to her room.

"And what have you been doing this morning little miss?" The maid asked the Miranda as she sat the girl onto a small chair before handing her some pens and paper.

The ebony haired duckling frowned, doodling silently on the paper she was given before answering, making sure not to look at her favourite nanny as she did so.

"The Beagle boys told me they had lost something really impor...importe...special to Uncle, they asked me to help them find it."

Miss Canary frowned instantly and shook her head, she was about to tell the small duckling off for trusting the obviously lying crooks when the small duckling came out with something quite unexpected.

"They also told me I would be pretty useless in a robbery, but I'll prove them wrong."

The elder Duck gasped and quickly marched over to the duckling, taking the smaller duck's hand in her own as she kneeled beside her, her expression one of anger.

"Now you listen to me Miranda Glomgold, you will do no such thing! You will grow into a normal duck with a normal life and you will put these foolish ideas out of your head understood?"

Miranda nodded wildly in fear before stopping for a moment and giving Miss Canary a questioning look.

"But Uncle said that when I was old enough I could help in one of his jobs."

Miss Canary growled angrily before letting go of the small duckling's hand, left her room and marched down the hall to her employer's office, knocking only once as she entered.

"Mr Glomgold." She said hastily as she neared her employer's desk.

Glomgold sighed and hung up on his secretary before settling his attention on his employed maid and nanny of his niece.

"It seems that ever since I adopted my niece you have taken accustom to breaking down my office door and telling me off." The elderly duck said sarcastically as he gestured for his maid to take a seat.

Miss Canary sighed and settled in to the offered seat and glared intently on the floor, knowing full well that if she settled that glare on her employer then poor Miranda would have nothing to stop her from her being the crook not only she but everyone else but this maid wanted.

"I am sorry Mr. Glomgold, but your choice to include Miranda in your little robberies someday is just unacceptable." She spoke clearly, doing everything she could to not sound insulting or in any way suggested so. She was just saying her opinion with every bit of patience she had left in her for this elderly duck that was sitting in front of her.

Glomgold shook his head and chuckled, acting as though she was nothing but a misunderstood duckling than the full grown woman that she was.

"Miss Canary, I believe how I raise my niece is my choice, correct?" Miss Canary sighed and nodded, sadness weighing down on her heart.

"But, Mr Glomgold, at least give her until she is a teen, let her have the childhood she deserves. Let her be a child sir."

Glomgold pondered over his employees words and tried to think of a way that would keep her on the staff role, after all, she was the only maid he had and Miranda's only nanny.

Finally, Glomgold reached a decision and looked back up at the Nanny before sighing and delivering his final offer.

"I will not allow Miranda to take part in these robberies until she is ten years old, and even then, it will only be a small part away from any of the danger...Is that good enough for you?" Glomgold finished holding out his hand for a final shake.

Miss Canary said nothing but shook her Employer's hand and left his office again, thinking only on how she could raise Miranda into someone who would deny any involvement in crime...

If only.

Later that day, Miss Canary was getting Miranda ready for her afternoon nap when they heard a knock at the Mansion's main door.

Miss Canary briefly looked back at the small child before holding up her hand.

"Wait here." She said simply, quickly walking out of the girl's room, accidentally leaving the girl's door open as she did so.

Miranda, never being one to give up the chance for adventure, quickly tip toed out the door and into the hallway beyond, stopping only to check for any tricks.

Satisfied with her new grant of freedom, Miranda quickly ran down hallway after hallway, her small webbed feet doing their best to lead her to rooms or hallways that she had never been in.

Eventually the small duckling found herself completely lost. Miranda took a good look at her surroundings before deciding to go back to her room before Miss Canary found out she was missing.

She turned, about to start running when she crashed right into one of the many Beagle Boys.

"Well looky here Burger, it's the Shorty herself!" Bigtime laughed, pushing the small duckling off of him and onto the carpeted floor.

Miranda growled angrily at the stupid nickname, getting back onto her feet and slapping away Bigtime's finger from her face.

"Watch where you're going genius or I'll put you out, capeesh?" the seven year old duckling hissed, doing her best to sound like the Beagle's mother, trying and failing.

The Beagle boys laughed loudly at her words, jeering her with flicks and pushes to the floor. Fortunately, Miranda was use to this so she stayed strong, hitting them back with as much force as she could muster into her arms.

Sadly this only made them laugh more, they're jeering however, downgraded to just petty words, but they were enough to hurt the small child.

"You'd be useless in a robbery Shorty; in fact if I were the Boss, I woulda left you in the rain!"

That comment left Miranda more hurt than she had ever been by they're words. What if she was useless in a robbery? Would Uncle keep her if she wasn't? What would she do then?

Miranda glared fiercely at Bigtime, her voice growing completely serious, the most serious that she had ever been in her life so far. That day she made a promise to not only those crooks, but herself as well.

"I'll show you, I'll be the best crook there ever was, and best niece! Someday I'll steal great big diamonds the size of your fat head Bigtime! Then after I prove you wrong, I'll make you eat the damn thing!"

After her outburst she turned and left the group of crooks in complete silence, a sense of anger following her where ever she went.

Something that would follow her for the rest of her life.

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**Please review!**


	4. Chapter 4

Three years had passed since that day and little Miranda had grown into a ten year old Duckling. This, unfortunately meant that Flintheart was supposed to keep his word and let her help him on one of his crimes, much to Miss Canary's annoyance and the duckling's constant reminding.

So finally, Miranda got her first mission, her first taste of crime, and boy was she bored.

Miranda stood quietly outside the best Ice-cream parlor in all of Duckburg, occasionally scratching herself due to the itchy dress she was forced to wear. Her mission was to 'Infiltrate the Ice-cream parlor and gain Scrooge's attention while Uncle took off with his money.' Normally that would have felt dishonest with any other child but by now, Miranda was used to it.

Now, Miranda was no longer the small innocent Duckling you had seen before, no, since her promise Miranda had made it her business to hang around the Beagle Boys allot more (Much to their annoyance and their mother's delight.) and in doing so, changed her attitude dramatically. She was now back chatting, rude and forcibly unsociable with everyone, except of course, her Uncle and Miss Canary.

That was why Miranda had prepared some quick, scathing remarks that she had learned from the beagle boys, she hoped these remarks would be enough to contain the elder duck's attention (and anger.) while her Uncle set about robbing his 'Money Bin' but even Miranda had her doubts that her Uncle would succeed.

"And where are your parents?"

Miranda nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned to face the wealthiest duck in world, and suddenly found herself forgetting all the remarks she had tried so hard to remember, so she resolved to make something up on the spot.

Unfortunately, Miranda was never really good at that sort of thing, whenever she tried the truth just sort of blurted out.

And in this case, that was exactly what happened.

"I was told by my Uncle to gain your attention while he robbed your money bin."

"WHAT!"

..."I'm not repeating myself."

Miranda 1 Scrooge 0

* * *

The day ended with Miranda being sent back Glomgold manner, much to the amusement of The Beagle Boys, who happened to have an 'I told you so' look written all over their face, to which the small duckling responded by poking her tongue at her and going outside to play in the Thorn like forest that took up most of the space in the mansion's backward.

Miranda spent hours playing amongst the thorns and vines when she heard the explicit shouting of her Uncle. Afraid that she had disappointed him, she ran deeper into the thorny undergrowth, unaware of how deeply the thorns she ran past cut into her skin, ripping at her dress, when she finally turned back and entered her home at night fall, her dress was covered in scratches, most of which were damp with the small girl's blood.

She entered her room, greeted by the sight of her worried nanny, who yelled out in surprise as the exhausted young girl collapsed tiredly onto the carpeted floor.

As she finally fell into peaceful sleep Miranda decided that the next time she was taken on a heist she would do everything to make sure her part of the job was done perfectly.

But, unfortunately that did not come to pass for a time.

Her Uncle was not really upset at her for blabbing, he had already failed in the attempt when she did anyway, what really annoyed him was that now society was aware that she existed, therefore making society and for that matter, Scrooge think that he might have gone soft. Because of this, Flintheart decided to hide her in the limelight until they forgot about her, then make the appropriate strike.

So it wasn't until little Miranda turned thirteen was she ever took a real part in another scandal.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry it took a while to update again, I was writing up some other fics that had been in my head for a few days, but I'm back now and ready to continue, please forgive the short chap, I will expand them next time I update on this story.**

* * *

Miranda and the beagle boys were slowly creeping their way through the halls of Scrooge Mcduck's Money Bin, making sure to hide behind corners whenever a secretary or Scrooge's butler came into view. Eventually though they managed to make it to Scrooge's office without being caught.

The boys had taken immediately to the Bin's security lock, doing their best to break it while Miranda looked around the office itself, just in case there was something valuable in the office itself, just so if they fail, it wouldn't have been a complete bust.

Bigtime walked over to Miranda, frightening the small teen as his large hand landed on her shoulder. The dark haired duckling jumped in fright, only to hear the amused chuckles of the Beagle Boys.

"Dammit Bigtime, we don't have time to mess around! Scrooge will be back any moment!" Miranda whispered harshly as Burger and Babyface managed to finally open the vault.

"Yeah, yeah whatever Shorty, we got the vault open so let's get going already." Burger snapped irritably at the angered teen.

"Stop calling me that." She mumbled angrily under her breath as the crime group quietly trooped into the vault, looking at the piles of gold below in wonder.

Bigtime sniffed and pulled a burlap sack from Miranda's back pack. "Start filling em' up guys we ain't got long till' Scroogie comes back for his daily dive."

Miranda threw him a confused look before looking back at the piles of gold below. "You mean he dives in this gold? How come he doesn't get hurt?"

The Beagle Boys looked at each other, their smirks confirming their next action before Bigtime picked up the small Duckling over his head, laughing at the thirteen year old's protests.

"Why don't ya' tell us Shorty, you can swim right?" Burger laughed, taking a bite of his sandwich he pulled out of his pocket only moments before.

"No! Wait I can't swim guys! Guys! Your gonna be in so much trouble for this!" Miranda yelled as Bigtime threw her off the vault's balcony and into the gold below.

"Make sure ya' get some gold while you're down there Shorty!" Bigtime laughed as they took off, leaving Miranda to sink under gold.

"Guys! Please come back! I can't swim! Especially in gold!" She screamed hysterically as she slowly began to sink under the gold and money.

As she sank she only had enough breath in her to let out one final scream before finally she sunk under the golden waves of greedy doom.

* * *

Flintheart waited impatiently for The Beagle Boys and his annoying niece to return from their mission, so needless to say he was angrier than anything when the boys came back not only penniless but also niece less as well.

"Where is she now?" He demanded angrily as the boys piled into the car, huffing tiredly.

"She's still in the vault boss; can't we just leave her there? She's nothing but a pain!" Bigtime whined loudly as they heard the approaching sirens.

"No we can't! If child services finds out what I'm doing, they'll take her off me!" Flintheart yelled at his dumber lackeys.

Burger scratched his head in confusion "Uhh... but why do ya' wanna' keep her around anyway Boss? She's no good at anything!" He said nervously, his brothers nodding in agreement.

"Because I'm being paid by child services to keep her around ya' brain dead monkey! And they're paying me quite the pretty bit too! Or at least they were till you left her behind!" Flintheart growled angrily as the sirens got closer, forcing the elderly duck to pull away from the Money Bin and taking off, leaving his poor drowning niece behind.

* * *

Miranda wasn't sure for just how long she had been sinking in the gold, but it was apparently long enough for Scrooge to come back from his meeting and take his daily dive, in which he found the small Glomgold child.

"I knew the Beagles paid me a visit earlier today, but I didn't know they left something behind!" Scrooge exclaimed as he pulled the unconscious girl from his gold.

"Are ya alright lassie?" He asked worriedly, placing her on the carpeted floor of his office, waiting for the duckling to regain consciousness.

Miranda mumbled quietly before finally opening her eyes. "Hello..." She whispered quietly, her voice tired from her screams.

The younger duckling sat up slowly, rubbing her head, wincing as she felt a sudden headache coming. Scrooge was about to ask after her parents until he got a good look at the small teen's face, and scowled in anger.

"I remember you, you're Glomgold's Niece!," He muttered angrily, pointing his walking stick at the tired thirteen year old before continuing, "What do you think you would accomplish by stealin' me gold? You would have been caught in the end."

Miranda snorted, knowing full well how that this was how the wealthy duck would have reacted when he finally recognised her.

"Would not." She laughed tiredly, slowly standing on her small webbed feet before pushing the walking stick out of her face.

"I would have been gone with a good bit of your goods if it weren't for those stupid Beagle Boys wanting to play Dunk-the-Duckling." She seethed, pulling a small water bottle out of her backpack for a drink as she walked towards the office's doors.

"So if you could just let me go and forget about this whole incident, I might just be thankful."

Scrooge growled, grabbing the teen's hand before practically dragging her out of the building, past the confused policemen themselves and straight to the police station. The frightened duckling protesting all the way.

After being dragged through the streets of Duckburg and enduring a large amount of yelling from the elderly duck and public humility, Miranda decided that she'd had just about enough and with one quick, unexpected twist of her wrist and she was free. Miranda stood stock still in surprise of her easy escape for a few seconds before coming to her senses and running in the other direction, trying her best to ignore the furious yelling coming from the richest duck in the world.

"You're just like your Uncle!"

That last comment made by the elderly duck stuck into her mind as she dogged past several cars and into the unseen alleyways of Duckburg. She didn't stop running until she eventually arrived home, collapsing exhausted onto the main hall's carpet, briefly wondering just how many times she was going to do so in her life before a more pressing question appeared in her half conscious mind.

She wasn't really like him though...was she?

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**So, you know the drill, Read and review if you can I'm all ears to constructive criticism. **


	6. Chapter 6

Miranda is now fifteen, and she is bored senseless.

Apparently not only a few days ago Scrooge's grand nephews had moved with the wealthy duck which, normally wouldn't even concern Miranda in the slightest bit, what the duck did was none of her business. But, unfortunately Uncle Flintheart had taken this as an insult since he 'apparently' raised Miranda first and therefore thought that Scrooge was trying to take his 'thunder'.

So in the very next morning, (Practically 7am in the morning by Miranda's watch, which by the way was way to damn early to even be alive.) Uncle Flintheart rudely awoke her before anyone else was up and practically dragged her to a nearby chauffeur driven car, only giving her enough time to look presentable before nearly speeding down the road to Scrooge's Mansion.

So it was understanding that Miranda had spent the car ride to McDuck Manor in tired silence...well mostly.

"So why exactly do you need me there Uncle, I mean why can't you get one of the Beagle Boys to help you?" She partly whined, looking intently out the side window of the vehicle so as not to see the look of disinterest that crossed her guardian's face as he answered, unaware that she still saw it through the window's reflection.

"Because it's a matter of principle Miranda." He answered gruffly, looking out the other car window as the teen sighed, obviously not buying it before she spoke again, her voice laced with both humor and hurt.

"No, it was because all the Beagle Boys are in jail right now isn't it?"Flintheart sniffed before nodding, knowing how hard it was to keep the truth from his Neice, so why bother.

The rest of the car ride was spent in blissful silence from both parties, since neither knew the other enough to start a decent conversation as the car eventually pulled in the McDuck Manor's driveway.

Miranda smiled at the bright cheerful colors the garden's and grass of the Manor seemed to have, quite the contrast to the thorny and unkempt bushes of the Glomgold Manor, not that Miranda minded, she would prefer the secret hiding thorns to the clear open spaces of these gardens.

Flintheat ignored his Neice's apparent fascination with the gardens and went ahead of her, stopping only to tell the driver of their car to remain in the McDuck's driveway before walking straight up to the Manor's large oak door's, knocking only wince before the door was opened for him by Scrooge's butler.

Ignoring the rude looks she was receiving from the richest duck's butler, Miranda followed her Uncle in silence, interest claiming her features as she took the time to inspect the many pieces of artwork in the Scottish duck's Manor. Miranda had grown quite the eye for art over the years, leading her mentor, Miss Canary to teach her as much as the elderly maid knew about all different types of creativity, sowing and painting included.

Miranda walked into the main hallway in silence, comparing the great mansion to her home. It seemed so much more...like a home to her than her own home was, like it was more likely for you to find children running around here than at Glomgold Manor.

Speaking of children, Miranda saw the triplet's themselves watching the deal at the top of the stairs. They looked harmless enough, barley a challenge to steal from if she really was in the mood.

She looked them over with interest, as if these triplets were as much as her competitors as Uncle did Scrooge, while silently hoping that would not be the case.

They seemed healthy and happy enough to her, but then again you could never really tell on appearances, so the teenage duck had thought it best to go over to them and introduce herself, its not as if it was against the rules to be polite now was it?

The teen was about to make an attempt to greet the triplets when she felt her Uncle tugging impatiently on her arm, gesturing that the competition had been set and it was time to leave. Relenting, she waved quickly at trio of ducklings in greeting before following her Uncle back to his car.

* * *

Hours later and the teen was seriously reconsidering her agreeing to help her Uncle with this strange competition.

It had taken a while to reach the desert where Scrooge and his nephews were now looking and she just wanted to go home. She, Uncle and some weird guy called El Capitan were watching Scrooge and his nephews comb through the desert on a rocky out top, they had just watched the wealthy duck escape from the quicksand trap.

"Duck Pajamas!" Miranda gave her Uncle a weird look after his outburst, holding back a giggle since she new how angry her Uncle really was.

Duck pajamas?

"He's escaped!" Her Uncle grumbled angrily as El Capitan shook his fist at him.

"Leave him you fool! Let's get the gold! The Gold is everything!" He said desperately, his hands clenched into fists.

"Get your life together man! We can still beat him." The teen said worriedly as her Uncle shook his head.

"You don't know Scrooge Miranda, he's like a money magnet, and he'll find the gold for sure." He said, while Miranda watched the strange gold obsessed dog walk over to the ice cream trolley they had brought with them for some reason that Uncle had decided not to tell his niece, even though she had to partly help the stupid Camel carry it up the rocky mountains that they had needed for 'cover'.

The dog pulled out a big piece of chocolate with what looked like a ship indent on it. He held it out for all to see before continuing on his now rather strange in context argument.

"I say we just beat him to the treasure, we have our own map, made out of Scrooge's chocolate."

Miranda gave the piece of chocolate a good look before turning to her Uncle, confusion clear on her face as the strange pair made no attempt to explain this strange occurrence to their traveling partner, what exactly had she missed lately?

Uncle Flintheart glared at the dog before taking the piece of chocolate out of his hands.

"And it's my map! So we'll wait here and stop him first. Put dents in his tracks!" Uncle placed the piece of chocolate onto a rock before pulling some dynamite out of one of the many pouches on the Camel's back.

Miranda gave her Uncle slightly worried look, hoping he wasn't going to do much damage before closely inspecting the chocolate ship map. It seemed legit, for chocolate, so Miranda decided to take her Uncle's word as gospel and not ask any more questions about it.

She was still closely inspecting it when she heard thunder crash from over head and fell back in surprise before sitting up, making sure that she didn't bump the map through her surprise.

It took her moment to notice that both men she had been traveling were gone. Miranda followed her Uncle's webbed footprints to a small opening in the rocky mountain. Just in time to see him throw the now lit dynamite down the mountain and towards the valley below.

"What have you done!" she yelled at her Uncle, her thoughts worrying after the small triplets that were with the Elderly duck below.

"Wining Miranda, I will push Scrooge back as far as possible, the ship's been sunk for four hundred years, and it can wait a little longer." Her Uncle Muttered angrily, heading back to the Ice cream trolley, ignoring his Niece's looks of concern as he did so.

"But I can't." Miranda stared at El Capitan after that statement, deciding to watch him more closely from now on, just in case he got all back-stabby or violent on them or god forbid, the triplets.

She followed them quietly back to the trolley in time to see the Camel eating the chocolate map!

"No!" The trio yelled out in surprise as the Camel attempted to finish off the map.

Flintheart pulled the now useless map out of the Camel's reach, growling under his breath about that the map was useless to him. It took him a few moments until he realized that Scrooge was the only one left with an actual map and quickly ran down the mountain to stop the dynamite, leaving Miranda with El Captain.

Miranda attempted to swallow her fear as she turned to the glaring dog, growing anger clearly evident in his sunken in eyes, he stalked closer to her, stopping only when her back was up against the rock wall, holding her hands up in silent defense as he growled at her.

"You," The strange dog growled accusingly at the teen, anger leaking through his words as he grabbed the edge of her long collared shirt, dragging her closer to him, all the while Miranda was frozen in complete fear of the old dog, "You were here with the map last, this is your fault."

Miranda glared angrily at the dog, while inside she too was berating herself for not putting the chocolate away when she had the chance as she felt the rock wall scratch into her back.

"Make another mistake like that and you will pay." He growled dangerously, pulling her forward so that she flinched under is breath before pushing the teen back roughly against the rock wall, noting the teens whimper of pain with satisfaction before noticing that Glomgold had returned and pulled away from the girl, only to round on the old man.

The teen lifted herself off the ground before her Uncle could notice her pain, not wanting to seem weak in his eyes as she brushed the brown dust off her jeans, desperate to hide her fear in her normal emotionless state.

"If you have lost me the gold!" He began but Uncle cut him off.

"Don't worry partner, we'll simply follow them." He said quickly, running past him, noting his Neice's discomfort for a moment before writing it off as exhaustion.

"Yes and then we'll take the map from them." The Dog growled following the wealthy duck, an eager look in his small eyes.

"That's the general idea Mutt!" Miranda hissed at El Capitan, still seething from his threat, but unsure, and certainly afraid of whether or not he would actually follow through with it.

* * *

It took a large amount of slow marching through thick, wet sand but eventually they made it to the cave where Scrooge and his nephews were sleeping. Miranda wiped some of her wet black hair out of her eyes, quietly thankful that she had taken the time to put her hair up in a ponytail a few hours back, since her fringe had taken to sticking to the front of her face.

They walked closer to the sleeping group, instant greed flashing in a rather creepy old dog's eyes, much to Miranda's d apparent discomfort as she remembered the bruises that had grown from his 'intervention.'

"We've got them now, and then the gold!" El Captain laughed sinisterly, rubbing his hands together greedily as Miranda gave the dog a weird look.

"Seriously though," She said holding her hands up to the dog, who growled ar her as she spoke, causing her to back away a few steps before she continued, "Stop that."

Uncle and El Captain walked ahead of the teen, right into the thief alarm the triplets had set up. Causing the teen to laugh at their spectacular fails, accidentally fully waking the triplets.

The boys quickly woke up, causing the two men to run further into the cave, only doing more harm than good as it woke up Scrooge. The wealthy duck and his nephews wasted no time and quickly ran after them, leaving Miranda alone in the cave.

"Ugh...I guess if I have no choice." She muttered angrily, following them further into the cave.

She followed Scrooge and his nephews from a safe pace, making sure not to be seen or heard until they ran into her Uncle and El Captain.

"Scrooge!" Her Uncle yelled angrily at the duck who stiffened.

"Glomgold!" He yelled back.

El Capitan noticed the triplets and growled, "You!"

The triplets shouted back, "That guy!"

And Miranda, feeling slightly left out decided to shout as well, "Miranda." She shouted, grinning goofily as her Uncle rolled his eyes before running down the tunnel ahead of Scrooge.

"We'll do lunch sometime!" He yelled back tauntingly, causing the other wealthy duck and his family to run after him, which got Miranda to run as well, considering that she didn't know the way back.

"Great I'll make you a knuckle sandwich!" Scrooge yelled back to her Uncle as they ran.

Eventually scrooge and his nephews stopped, having lost track of Glomgold. They looked up, just in time to see him close a large rock on the only way out.

"Wait! Uncle I'm still down here!" Miranda screamed up at her only guardian, fear settling in her as it got darker.

"The water's rising!" One of the triplets yelled desperately, snapping Miranda back to the matter at hand.

"Come on, we're not water logged yet!" Scrooge yelled determinately, walking further into the cave, his nephews and Miranda following him.

Soon, the water reached up to Miranda's knees and she started to get worried. Fearing for the boys she quickly grabbed the triplets and placed them on her shoulders and one on her back, trying not to note the feeling of her fear of water grow as the water reached her chest.

"Hold on tight, okay?" she said quietly, not wanting the triplets to know how frightened she really was and, god forbid, Scrooge to know she was helping them.

Eventually they reached some solid ground and the water quickly fell back to their feet, leaving Miranda to take a small breath of relief. The triplets quickly dropped off her, giving her only a small nod in thanks before following their Uncle.

They followed him for a few seconds until he suddenly disappeared.

"Uncle Scrooge!" The group yelled out, running after him, just in time to see him holding on tightly to the edge of a ledge.

Quickly, the triplets (and Miranda, not that she would ever admit it.) dragged Scrooge back onto the solid ground.

Scrooge turned and looked back over the edge, gasping in surprise, "Look! The treasure ship! There's gold in them there hull's."

They carefully climbed down the mountain, eventually making it to the ship's treasure. Scrooge ran into the ship looking at the amount of gold in sheer happiness.

Miranda however, just looked at the gold in curiosity; the coins seemed to have some kind of Sun symbol on them. Looking around to make sure the triplets or Scrooge wasn't looking, she quickly shoved some of the jewels into her free pockets, but not enough to seem suspicious.

She was greedy, but not stupid.

"How are we gonna get all this gold home Uncle Scrooge?" one of the triplets asked their Uncle curiously, causing Miranda to worry. Exactly how where they going to get home? Gold or not they were still stuck in this cave, no thanks to her Uncle.

"How? By helping you earn your Junior Woodchuck's seaman ship badges!" Scrooge said happily, handing the triplets some gold hammers before they set out to work, causing Miranda to watch them with fascination before snapping out of her thoughts and helping sow the gold sails, unsure of exaclty how you can make gold fabric but then again, what did she know?

Scrooge watched her work with interest before walking over to her and tapping her shoulder, the teen looked up at him in confusion before seeing the expression on his face and sighing, knowing that he would have eventually found out as he took one of the jewels she had taken out of her jacket pocket.

"I'm not letting Glomgold win just yet! So you better dump it!" Scrooge said seriously, throwing the jewel back into the golden pile before holding his hand out for anymore of the stolen goods.

Miranda sighed and threw the jewels out her jacket pockets and into the pile, directly ignoring Scrooge's out stretched hand as she did so, noting his annoyance with satisfaction before turning to him and holding her hands out, gesturing that she had no more jewels on her.

"All of it." The elderly duck leaned against the wooden hull of the ship, a look of sarcastic disbelief written all over his face.

The teen was about to deny having any more before sighing and digging out the rest of the jewels from her jeans, stopping only to glare at the elderly duck.

"Happy?" she asked Scrooge, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she picked up a nearby gold string and sowing needle and walking over to a golden sail, ready to repair any holes that might be in the fabric.

"For now." With that, he turned and supervised his nephew's progress as Miranda returned to her own work, mumbling certain curses at the old duck that shouldn't be repeated.

* * *

Eventually the boys were finished repairing the ship and quickly climbed aboard just as the water level began to rise.

The ship slowly but surely gained speed and was soon sailing down the new river. Miranda watched Scrooge sail the ship, briefly wondering when he learned how to do it before admiring her needle work in the sails, satisfied that all the stitching classes she had received from Miss Canary hadn't gone to waste.

The boat reached a few bumps and problems during their little sail but Scrooge and his nephews managed to solve it without her help. Deciding that she was pretty useless to them on deck, she went down the stairs, glaring at the gold that lay underneath.

She contemplated her chances of attempting to sneak off with some more gold but decided against it. She didn't want to give Scrooge any more reasons to throw her overboard than he had received already.

Miranda eventually went back up on deck just as the boat reached town. They were nearly out of Roungway when she heard a noise from behind her.

"Correction! My gold!" Miranda turned to see her Uncle with El Capitan, who seemed greatly occupied by one of the golden bars.

Glomgold cocked the gun in his hand and waited for anyone to make a move, noted his niece's presence and Miranda swore that she saw a small flicker of relief cross his face before he continued in with his greedy demeanor.

"Miranda, get over here!" He ordered gruffly at the teen, who did not argue as she was also relived to see her only blood relative, she just showed it more than the elderly duck was willing to in Miranda's opinion.

Scrooge glared at Miranda as she walked to her Uncle's side before keeping his eyes on the gun in Glomgold's hands, his anger still clearly on the teenage duck as he did as his competitor ordered, making sure to keep the triplets as far from the gun as possible.

Glomgold also kept his eyes on his rival, pointing at the only row boat aboard, his intentions were clear. Scrooge led his nephew into the boat, stopping only to glare once more at Miranda before Glomgold spoke.

"Nice of you to the trouble of fixing this ship and sailing my treasure out!"He laughed happily, the gun still held intently in his hand, "And just in time, in ten minutes I'll have won our bet!"

Scrooge growled angrily at Glomgold, his glare still retaining on Miranda, who was avoiding his gaze with great effort.

"I have found it! My log book!" El Capitan said happily continuing to count off all the gold things on the boat. Much to the annoyance of everyone else.

"It's been fun Scrooge, but it's time we parted ways." Glomgold said as he tried to pull everyone's attention of the annoying dog as he lowered the row boat into the water.

"I'll get even with you Glomgold! And you too Miranda!" Miranda winced at the wealthy duck's statement, his words from two years ago still ringing through her ears.

_You're just like your Uncle!_

During this moment when El Capitan was sure that his associate and his rivals weren't looking he walked up to Miranda, taking a moment to stand right next to her, almost smirking in satisfaction for the second time that day when he felt her shiver under his gaze.

"Your lucky for now, but if I find out you took any of my gold with the intention of stealing, you'll be missing a few limbs, capeesh?" He growled softly so the girl's uncle couldn't hear, a smile finally appearing on his face as he saw her nod slowly, almost gasping with relief as she felt the dog's presence leave, suddenly aware that she should probably stick closer to her uncle from now on.

"Now that I'm the richest duck in the world, you're welcome to try." Miranda's Uncle teased, oblivious to his Niece's discomfort as he threw a small coin down at Scrooge's boat. "Here, I wouldn't want you to go empty handed after all, don't say I'm not a good winner." He cackled, much to the dismay of El Capitan.

"My gold!" He yelled angrily pointing an accusing finger at the elderly duck as his glare heated on the teenage duck that was nearly hiding behind her elderly relative, "You threw away my gold!"

He ran over to a nearby cannon, stopping only to light it as he pointed it at the two Glomgolds, his intent very clear.

"Swim out there and get it back old duck or I'll blast you and your annoying blood relative off this boat!" the dog yelled at them, his face contorting in anger.

"Dude, chill! It's just one coin!" Miranda yelled desperately, slowly backing to the side of the ship, ready to jump if she had to, anything to get away from the threatening dog.

However her Uncle seemed to want to start a fight.

He rolled up his sleeves and walked closer to the cannon, not even the smallest traces of fear on his face as he stood right in front of it, much to Miranda's surprise and silent admiration as he quickly grabbed the cannon.

"So," he said "You want to play rough?" He turned the cannon around on the dog "I got you, you weasel!" he cackled, more than happy to get rid of his associate.

The Dog glared, turning the cannon back on Miranda's Uncle before glaring intently at the fleeing form of female duck as she backed towards the edge of the ship, he would get her later for what she had done to him.

However, The teen in question had foreseen how this would work out and no lack of swimming abilities was going to keep her on the boat when the cannon went off.

The teen quickly jumped into the water, swimming as best and as fast as she could, away from the boat, her fear of the water being squashed by her desperation to get away. Finally the cannon went off and the boat started to sink, followed by her Uncle jumping in the water after her.

Being someone with a lack of dignity in situations were her very life was concerned, Miranda quickly swam towards the rowboat that held the one man who promised revenge on her only a few moments ago.

"Help me?" She begged the old duck, her fear of the water slowly settling in again as she clung to the rowboats rim, the rich duck's triplets pleading her case as they held onto her hands, her fingers slipping as she felt the water grow colder.

Scrooge gave her a sarcastic look before grabbing her hands out of the triplet's grasp and helping her on the boat with more strength than she had expected. She turned just in time to see her own Uncle being helped aboard by the triplets.

"Where's the stranger?" One of the triplets asked their uncle, looking around in the water for him.

"He went down with his ship." Glomgold said simply, ignoring Miranda's shocked look as he grudgingly settled next to his enemy, taking only a moment to check if Miranda was hurt in anyway and quickly glared at his rival after he was sure she was fine.

"Looks like I won the bet Glomgold." Scrooge said happily, flipping the last coin from the ship in his hand, his smile forming into a full blown grin at the thought of his victory.

"Not a chance, Miranda would have stolen something for me ages ago." Flintheart said triumphantly, holding his hand out expectantly in front of his Niece.

Miranda, however, scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, thinking of how to put it to her Uncle gently that she hadn't stolen anything without the chance of being disowned.

"Uhh...One would think Uncle..." She said sheepishly, her head sagging a little in shame.

"What!" He rounded on his Niece, "You mean you didn't steal a dime from that stupid boat!"

The teen held her hands out in surrender, trying her best to think up an excuse.

"Well uh... I tried Uncle but... he caught me." She said quietly, her voice betraying her attitude, she was more upset then she was putting on.

Deciding that the teen had been yelled at enough for one day Scrooge grasped his rival's attention away from his Niece who looked back at the rich duck gratefully.

"So Flint," He said happily, taking the Scottish man's Tam-o-shanter off his head and offering it to him, " How would you like it? With or without mustard?"

Glomgold glared angrily before taking the hat out of Scrooge's hands before taking a big bite out of it, ripping the hat nearly in half in his aggravation. Miranda giggled and relaxed quietly in the back of the row boat with the triplets as the two old men rowed them back to the Roungway Airport.

* * *

**Okay, that took a while longer than usual and I'm prety sure the next one might be even longer. Review please to give constructive criticism.  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but Miranda and this chapter takes place during the Ducktales' episode Robot Robbers. The last Chapter took place during Wrong way in Roungway (sorry for not mentioning it anyone who was confused.)**

**Anyway, enjoy this incredibly long chapter!**

* * *

It had been a few weeks since the Roungway incident and barley anything had happened since.

Miranda sat on the window ledge of her bedroom, looking outside in complete boredom. Being the niece of the second wealthiest duck in the world, she wasn't really allowed to go to school, because according to her uncle, why go to school when there is a perfect learning system here at home!

_Yeah right_, the miserable teen duck thought idly as she flipped through one of the many text books she had received from her Nanny. She sighed loudly before reading the same sentence over and over and over...

"Knowledge is power Miranda, never forget that!" Miss Canary said tirelessly as she hit the younger duck over the head with a small dictionary. Miranda yelped in pain before continuing in her reading, doing her best to ignore the raspy coughs of her female mentor.

Miss Canary had been growing rather sickly in the past few months, despite Miranda's and, believe it or not, Uncle Flintheart's attempts to keep her healthy (On a cheap budget of course, no need to overspend on the only maid in the house, after all he could always get a new one.)

The elderly maid herself was rather disinterested in her sickness, she was more bothered with the education and well being of her only student. Miranda wasn't very smart, but she was certainly talented, talented for crime, but talented all the same.

Ever since the incident in Roungway Miranda had been doing her best to excel her talents in crime so that her uncle wouldn't look down on her so much, and so far she had been doing rather well, she and the Beagle Boys even managed to successfully rob a bank once, something that apparently impressed the Beagle Boys enough to leave her out of their jeering, but only for a short time.

But it didn't matter to Miss Canary exactly how well she was doing in robbing banks, what mattered to her was that she was getting better in the first place. Some nights were spent sleepless on how it frightened the elderly nanny to think of what Miranda would become when she finally passed on if she didn't do something.

Unfortuantley due to her failing health and her less of a hold over Miranda actions than her uncle had, all she could do was help her with her pupil's IQ Level.

So far though, the results had not exactly been, satisfactory.

Oh she could read just fine, and in fact had even confessed her love for reading, it was only once and the girl was reasonably tired enough not to know what she was talking about but it was enough for Miss Canary. But when it came to the apparent difficutly of sums and history, Miranda really fell behind.

"Miranda," Miss Canary looked up from her teachings as her Employer strode into the room, inturrupting the younger female from her studies without so any concern for the latter, much to the maid's annoyance.

"Yes Uncle, what do you need?" The teen duck gave her Uncle her complete attention.

_If only she'd do the same with her studies, _Miss Canary thought bitterly as she watched her student slam her text book shut absent mindedly.

"I recently hired some screw ball that works for Scrooge, He's built me some helpful equipment for construction and I need you to tell any would be builders that come into the building sites that if they don't have any experience in electronics they better shove off, okay?" He said off handily, not noticing the growing annoyance on his employee's face.

But before she could intervene in this obviously boring and not even in the least bit rewarding job that Glomgold obviously didn't want to handle himself, the hopeful and really at times pitied voice of Miranda stopped her.

"Sure Uncle! Anything to keep me from studying!" She said happily, jumping out of her seat and hugging her nanny goodbye before following her uncle out, her farewells to her mentor still sitting in the worried duck's mind.

"I'll see you later Miss Canary, wish me luck!"

With that the Library door closed with an all to final thud, leaving Miss Canary to speak aloud by herself, the dusty books the only witnesses she had as she coughed loudly afterwards.

"I did along time ago my dear, and it seemed to do nothing for you."

* * *

It had taken Miranda only a few minutes of loud and annoying begging until uncle allowed her to make an appearance at the press conference at the building site.

She smiled for the cameras as they took photos of her and her Uncle as the Mayor shoveled some dirt out of the sites ground for some reason that Miranda wasn't sure of but was to excited to ask after.

Of course the press asked her the usual questions and she answered them with what her uncle had told her to say on their way to the sight.

"So what is Glomgold like as a uncle?"

"Oh, he's great, tons of fun and always ready to help me in my learning."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No, sadly I'm an only child but you know its fine, I've gotten quite use to being my uncle's favorite." Miranda lightly cringes at that one, knowing that out of all the fake answers, she wished this one was even remotely true.

Uncle had fortunately chose this moment to confront a rather old looking woman who had been interrupting the press people, offering them apples in exchange for small amounts of money.

Miranda watched her Uncle scam the woman for her profit and giggled at the irony as he bit into the sour apple she had given him. Karma never shined fairly on her uncle when it came to unfair bargaining, something that Miranda had picked up on quickly as a child and had been confident that it was something that she herself could get past when she was older.

But the woman was acting a bit weird for Miranda's tastes, she was about to follow the old woman to make sure that she wouldn't cause trouble but was dragged over to a nearby tent by her uncle.

The teen duck took a seat next to her uncle as he stood in front of a podium, going on and on about how great he was and how he was better at construction sites than Scrooge was and blah, blah, blah.

Honestly, Miranda really did care for her uncle, but he was pretty repetitive when it came to his speeches. She was about to stifle a yawn when one of the sides of the steel building opened like a door reveling four huge robots.

Sadly this seemed a little to much for Miranda, who just sat in her seat, her beak half open as her yawn had long since left her, giving the interpretation that she was gaping at the large metallic robots, which was exactly what she was doing.

She watched in wonder as the larger than life robots walked towards the tent, frightening her to the point where she quickly stood and ran to her uncle's side, knowing that since he owned the robots, they were less likely to crush him to death.

Obviously Miranda hadn't really seen any Monster Movies in her childhood.

Eventually her uncle caught sight of his rival toppled on some of the large wooden beams that had fallen due to the gravity defying robots footsteps.

"Well if it isn't yesterday's news," uncle smirked as he walked over to Scrooge, taking a moment to let Miranda catch up behind him, noting her still dizzy appearance from the robots entrance.

"Allow me to introduce you to the machines that are going to Mcduck's Construction out of business." He said happily, not even lending a hand to his adversary as an a voice boomed out of an intercom that sat on top of one of the Robot's heads.

"Hello Mr. Mcduck, how do you like my newest invention." An awkward yet intelligent voice rang through the intercom. Miranda clearly did not recognise the voice but from what she saw on Scrooge's face, he certainly did.

"That voice..." He said disbelievingly, as if he didn't expect whoever was in the robot to be there. The robot bent down to reach the elderly duck's level, showing the image of a rather strange stick figured bird with short red hair.

"It's me!" The bird said happily, completely unaware of his old employer's anger.

"Gyro!" He shouted angrily waving his fist at the glass screen that protected Gyro from the elderly duck's fury. "It thought I told you never to build another robot!"

"You told me never to build another robot for you Mr Mcduck! I built these for Mr. Glomgold!" The robot held out its arms and gestured to the robots around it.

Miranda nearly laughed out loud at the bird's response, mentally congratulating him for his logic while wondering just how long it took to construct the robots so that they made gestures like a real person.

"But Gyro, the last robot you invented nearly took over the world!" Scrooge shouted, causing Miranda to once again to ponder on just what she had been missing lately, I mean world domination? Seriously? How could she have missed that!

"Not to worry Mr. Mcduck, I've great improvements, the last robot had a computer for a brain, in this model I'm the brain!" He said hapily as the robot gestured towards its head where the bird sat comfortably.

"But why didn't you think of that in the first place?" Miranda yelled out to him, surprising the two elderly ducks near her as they were reminded of her presence.

But for some reason Gyro didn't seem to have heard her (He was ignoring her complete understanding of logic for the sake that he hadn't thought of it.) Scrooge soon decided that awkward silence was best not left to linger as he replaced his top hat on his head.

"I fail to see the improvement." He mumbled, much to the teen duck's amusement.

"The improvement is that my robots are going to make me a fortune!" Flintheart said happily to his rival before turning back to the group of robots.

"Gyro, start the foundations." He yelled up to the strange bird who complied as the three ducks walked away to look at other prospects the robots had at advancing the construction site months ahead in mere minutes.

"I'm telling you Glomgold, building these robots was a mistake!" Scrooge yelled unhappily as he struggled underneath a ton of rocks that had been unceremoniously dropped on him, causing Miranda to wonder on exactly why he was still alive before deciding to not ask after the old duck's apparently unnatural strength.

Uncle just laughed and jeered him some more. "Who are you trying to fool, passing up the chance to build them was the mistake, and you made it."

Scrooge (for some reason) looked at him in shock but Glomgold just continued, metaphorically digging Scrooge a deeper set of worries than the ton of rocks he was currently covered in.

"You're goin soft Scrooge old boy, You've been on top so long you've become to careful. Afraid to take chances." Glomgold said wisely, and pulled his rival out of the ton of rocks with on hand, greatly impressing his niece, who had been lifting them off the richest duck one at a time.

"And as they say, you snooze, you loose." Glomgold laughed before gesturing for his rival and niece to follow him as he show them the robots continuing to advance the construction work well beyond the years it would have taking in the first place.

Miranda watched in continuing amazement as the robots picked up some cement trucks in one hand, taking the cement container off of them and squeezing it like a tomato bottle into the spaces required. And couldn't help but laugh out loud when she saw some of the cement splatter on Scrooge, freezing him in place.

"Quick drying cement," Her uncle laughed as he turned back to the large robots, "Gyro, Get the old stiff outta this would ya?"

"Sure thing Mr. Glomgold." He said over the intercom, lifting one of the robots fingers and watching as the top fell back reveling a drill and in one motion drilled his former boss out of the quick cement, once again causing Miranda to once again question the laws of physics as the elderly duck came out of it totally fine.

"With these robots, I'll get all the construction jobs you use to get, why its like taking candy from a baby. Come to think of it , I haven't done that in a while." He cackled at the end, causing Miranda to frown at her guardian's last comment.

"You did that on our way here." She said idly, noting her uncle's satisfied look before Scrooge took the attention of them both.

"Is that Launchpad! What is he doing here?" Miranda looked in the direction of the elderly duck's glare, greeting her with the entertainment of watching someone crash their plane in the most creative of ways, which somehow ended with the pilot landing right in front of them.

"Say , are you paying me by the hour or by every loop." He said in a dizzy voice as he slowly climbed onto his feet, met with the strange looks of Miranda, the glare of her uncle and the tired look of .

"Neither, your fired." Glomgold said off handily as he walked off, dragging his niece along with him.

"Wow uncle that's probably the fastest I've ever seen you fire somebody." Miranda commented off handily, who was answered by a grunt from her guardian who lead her over to a small desk in front of the entrance to the sight, a sign in front of it that read _Answer Q's then get hired!_

"So this is where I'm supposed to turn down some poor builders who don't know an internet connection from a home page?" Miranda asked her uncle in a rather bored tone, her excitement from seeing the robots well but worn out as her uncle nodded once, handing her some piles of empty paper.

"Use this to write down any potential employee's info on and take it back to me at the end of the day with the list." He said simply, gesturing for her to take a seat at the desk. Miranda sat quietly and was about to start on the first poor schmuck that was waiting in the now large line when she noticed her uncle was still there.

He looked as though he was about to say something but held back, letting his normal snarl cross his face as he walked away, leaving Miranda with her mission.

* * *

"Do you have any electronic skills?"

"No..."

"Then what are you still doing here?"

It had been like this for a while, another schmuck, the same question and the same result. Every single time for nearly three hours.

Honestly, you'd think that the word have spread or some-

"Alright, pack it up day's over."

Well that was just a waste of time.

Miranda looked down at the pitiful blank papers, a feeling of disappointment clear on her features, she'd failed her uncle at this one simple job, how good was she supposed to be when she couldn't even do this one simple thing!

The fifteen year old sighed, about to pack up shop herself to head home and wallow in her coffee when she heard a voice from behind her.

"Is there any chance of still signing up?"

Miranda gave the person behind her a good look over. He was a rat that looked around Miranda's age but was possibly older, he was wearing a black t shirt and grey pants. He looked just like a normal teenager so why was he here?

Shrugging Miranda decided to give this boy a chance and quickly sat back in her chair and looked up at the teen with tired eyes before sighing and asking the same question that she now hated with a burning passion so much that when she asked him it, it almost sounded like she was ready to kill the poor boy if he said the wrong answer.

"Do you have any electronic skills?"

"Yes."

"Right, that's it I'm gonna- wait what?"

Miranda was about to jump the desk to beat the snot out of the teen when his answer finally got through to her brain, causing her to pause in her efforts and give the rat teen a strange look.

"Seriously?"

The rat nodded and was nearly surprised by the girl's response as she continued to jump the table and shake the boy's hand as fast as she could, her words coming out in a jumble as she was clearly more tired than she had been showing.

"Oh thank god! Okay welcome aboard Glomgold enterprises! You will be placed under the instructions of Gyro and be paid a decent amount."

"How much is that?"

Miranda walked back over to her desk and gave the rat a weird look.

"A decent amount."

The rat nodded before taking a seat on the other side of the desk as they settled out his information.

"Name?"

"Elmo Sputterspark." Miranda nodded happily and quickly gave the boy the papers to sign for employment, looking more happy than she had been all day.

"Well welcome aboard Sparky, you will receive a call sometime this week regarding the rest of your employment details, until then have a nice week." She said happily, smiling at the rat's new nickname she had given him before taking the info paper from the boy and putting it in her pocket and starting on her walk home with the large pile of empty papers in her arms, unsure of exactly what she was going to do with them. Her plan at that moment landed on possibly burning them so that her uncle wouldn't know how many sad people there actually was in the world.

"Wait, your just gonna walk home?" Elmo ran after the duck teen, a worried look clear on his face as he took some of the empty papers out of her hands, despite her objections.

"Well, yeah that's how I usually do it, now will you give me back those papers?"

Elmo frowned at her and refused to comply, instead he just walked ahead of her, gesturing with his head for her to follow him.

Miranda growled and ran back up to him, not noticing as she lost one or two of the empty pages, they were useless to her anyway since her uncle wouldn't need them.

"Now look Sparky, you don't even know where I live so how exactly are you helping me?" She asked the rat, who paused in his efforts and turned to her, a little shame faced as he spoke.

"Where do you live?" Miranda couldn't help but laugh at how cu-silly he looked as he blushed before finally deciding to let him help, besides how much damage was he doing?

"I live at Glomgold Manor, I suppose you know where that is?" She inquired, though she already knew the answer of course. Glomgold Manor was the only other mansion in Duckburg apart from Mcduck's so of course he was going to know where it was.

"Oh so you work there?" He said in what sounded a little too much like a pitiful voice as they walked down a few alleyways so that they could short cut it to her 'home'.

"No, I live there." She said in a steely voice, already regretting her decision to let him help her.

Elmo nearly dropped the papers he was holding in realization as he finally recognized Miranda, he had to stop for a moment to put the papers on a wooden bench before pointing at her in disbelief.

"Your Miranda Glomgold!" He said in a shocked voice as Miranda placed her papers on the bench next to his, her arms growing tired from the wieght as she used the last bit of strength in them to slap away the rat's accusing finger.

"Oh my gosh really, I never knew!" The teen duck exclaimed sarcastically as she stretched the muscles in her arms, before taking one of the piles and shoving it into the still shocked rat's hands, catching him off guard as she grabbed her pile and quickly walked ahead of him, not really wanting to be apart of the discussion they would inevitably have.

"What's it like having Glomgold for a guardian?" Elmo asked as soon as he caught up with the clearly agitated teen, his eyes showing keen interest while Miranda was grinding her teeth together in annoyance.

"What do you think it's like Sparky?" She shot back, already feeling a headache growing from her sudden choice of a conversation partner.

"I imagine it would suck."

Okay that caught her of guard. Most of the time when people asked her that question, they made it sound so glamorous, like there was a side of her life that she apparently wasn't seeing and she felt as though she had to give them the answer they were expecting. No one had ever told her it was okay to say that it sucked, in fact she even felt a little better now that she got to say it, like a weight was lifted off her shoulders.

Her life sucked. It sucked being ignored by the only blood relative you have, it sucked being constantly bullied by some of the saddest burglars in the world, it sucked to know that the only good influence she had in her life probably won't even be around for that much longer.

It sucked.

Meanwhile, during Miranda's sudden inner realization, the two teens heard the ever familiar sound of the robots being released from their steel containment.

"Isn't it too late at night to start work again?" Elmo asked quietly, watching as one of the robots seemingly walked out of the construction site and around town.

"I don't think they are starting work again." Miranda answered, quickly wiping away any tear she may or may not have shed during her realization, dropping her paper pile at the same time as she ran in the direction of the robots, her new acquaintance unknowingly to her following right behind her as the forgotten pages littered about freely in the street, an unimaginable fine for littering most likely going to be sent to her Uncle the next day.

* * *

They were running for quite a bit and only managed to make it half way to the first robots destination in time to see it leave. Elmo watched it leave for a moment in confusion before following Miranda as she ran/walked/dragged themselves all the way back to the Construction Site.

"Why would they go to a jail? There noting there but-" Elmo began but was cut off by his acquittance, who growled in response.

"Crooks." Miranda finished, glaring as they arrived back near the construction site in time to see the robots robbing clothes stores and terrorizing the town, knocking down buildings and roads, the works. She watched them go for a minute before finally running up to an abandoned push bike and quickly jumped on it and turning to Elmo, clear determination on her face.

"Are you coming?" She asked, and was about to take off when she felt added weight on the back of the bike, the weight somehow upping her confidence in a way she probably never knew until that night.

"I've got nothing better to do." That was all she needed.

* * *

Elmo nearly fell off the bike in surprise as Miranda peddled as fast and as hard as she could all the way to the Robots, and had unconsciously wrapped his arms around her waist in order to right himself. Elmo blushed but noticed that Miranda hadn't said anything so he didn't move them.

Miranda meanwhile, was peddling faster towards the robots, determination stirring up her endorphins, making her push faster, nothing was going to stop the desperate teen to catch the crooks that were most likely going make off with Scrooge's money and god forbid, her uncle's property.

What surprised her however, was how long it took to reach them, since by the time they had finally gotten to the robots it was early morning.

Elmo yawned loudly from behind Miranda, scaring the teen into almost swerving into a wall as she tried to stop the bike.

"Damn Elmo would you be careful." She muttered angrily before finally stopping the bike, her legs tired and wobbly from all her work and was about to walk off when she nearly fell, but was luckily saved at the last minute from falling by Elmo.

"Sorry Miranda, but maybe you should rest for a minute, you're going to hurt yourself." Elmo said worryingly, picking up the teenage duck and placing her on a nearby bench, noting the teens tired eyes as he sat beside her, knowing full well that she was probably planning on what to do next.

She was about to get up him for helping her when she saw her uncle walking up to the robots in the corner of her eye and quickly followed/wobbled after him, Elmo running after her in surprise and worry as they watched the confrontation from behind one of the partly broken buildings thanks to one of the four robots.

Glomgold stood in front of one of the sitting robots and kicked it as hard as he could, his furious attitude giving him more confidence than he had earlier.

"Take that you robot robber!" He yelled before shouting in pain and grabbing his leg, his anger forgotten by his pain.

Suddenly the other robots quickly stood and surrounded her uncle the one in the middle's voice becoming instantly familiar.

"Hey nobody can kick our Mama around and get away with it!" _Bigtime..._

"Lets teach this punk a lesson!" _Babyface..._

Miranda face palmed as she recognized the voices, damn those Beagle Boys. She was about to go over and help her uncle when she one of the robots grab some boom gates from a nearby train line and held one in its hands like a hokey stick.

"Let's play some hockey!" it's driver yelled happily, handing the other boom gates/ hockey sticks to the other two robots, that readied themselves for the fun.

"Are they actually going to.." Elmo trailed of, a little surprised as his question was answered.

Miranda watched furiously as the robots used her uncle as a hockey puck in their demented game and was about to intervene when she felt Elmo pull her away just in time as one of the robots came running past, nearly destroying the top half of the apartment building that was just across from the teens.

"Watch what your doing Miranda, or you'll be crushed!" He whispered harshly, deciding then not to let go of the girl until the robots were finished with her uncle so she wouldn't be hurt.

Eventually the robots grew tired of their game and with one final hit, threw Flintheart against a road work sign and into the sewers below him. Miranda shouted out in shock and immediately ran after him to see if he was okay, easily breaking Elmo's hold around her middle as she did so, making the rat teen wonder if she just allowed him to keep her from harm.

"Miranda, wait up!" He shouted, running after her as she quickly climbed down the ladder into the sewers where her uncle laid hurt.

* * *

"Uncle are you okay!" Miranda exclaimed as she jumped down the ladder, briefly noting that Elmo wasn't following her into the sewers before helping her guardian to his feet.

"I'm fine and- what are you doing here?" Flintheart grumbled, pulling himself out of his niece's hands, a little bit grumpy to see her but otherwise all right.

"I saw you get beaten up by those Beagle Boys, I was worried." Miranda mumbled, looking pointedly at the water below her feet, a little unhappy that her uncle wasn't grateful in her attempt to help him.

"Hey , didn't Gyro's last robot short circuit when we splashed it with water?" Launchpad said, absently cutting off another guilt trip for the Glomgold teen who looked rather surprised to see him and Scrooge in the sewers with her uncle.

"Of course! All we have to do is find a way to lure them into the Duckburg Reservoir!" Scrooge exclaimed, helping Flintheart to walk, making sure that he was leaning on his shoulder as he did so.

"And we can do it with your helicopter, but we still need an electronic expert, since we can't find Gyro." Scrooge mumbled the last bit, but Miranda fortunately managed to overhear him.

"Oh really? Cuz this just might be your lucky day." Miranda smirked at the elderly duck's expression before turning to her still rather dizzy guardian, amusement written all over her face.

"Uncle I managed to find an electronics expert for you like you asked, in fact he's just up this ladder." She said, watching her Uncle's expression change from confused back to the same old snarl.

"Well, we better go meet him then right Glomgold." Scrooge said, looking over at his rival who by this time had shrugged off his competitors helping hands and was climbing up the ladder.

"Quit talking and start climbing, the less time we waste the less damage I have to pay for." He grumbled.

* * *

Elmo winced for a moment as he stood in front of the sewer hole, suddenly rethinking his tactics to follow the strange girl he only met a few hours ago, instead he decided to wait until Miranda and her uncle climbed out of there before he went with them to help with their problem.

The rat teen walked himself over to the bench where he and Miranda had been sitting only minutes ago and thought over what had just happened to him today before asking himself whether this job was really worth the trouble.

It was his first job on his own and he really did need the money, but was it really worth the life death experience?

While he was thinking this, Miranda, her uncle and Scrooge McDuck had managed to climb their way out of the sewers, Miranda instantly smiling at him expectantly as she waked over, the smell of sewer apparently completely oblivious to her.

Elmo immediately thought back to the moment he had with her on the push bike and blushed, deciding that maybe the job would be worth a little danger, maybe even a lot who knows?

"Uncle this is the electronics expert I was telling you about, he can help take down the robots!" She exclaimed happily, quickly pulling Elmo by the arms so that he was now standing next to her, a little to close apparently, judging by the elderly duck's expression.

Elmo shuffled a little bit away from the other teen, a motion that didn't go unnoticed by the elderly ducks, who both smirked at his action.

"And how good is he?" Scrooge asked Miranda, making a point to poke Elmo in the chest with his walking stick.

"Oh he's ummmm..." Miranda trailed off, unsure of what to say next but was gladly saved by the subject matter himself who cleared his throat before talking.

"I'm at the top of my class in electronic skills and I actually consider myself quite good at it , and I'd be happy to help in the putting out of these robots if hires me?" He said carefully, this time it was his turn to pointedly turn to the second richest duck with his last remark, his eyebrows raised.

Miranda smirked at the teens sudden leap in confidence and also turned to her uncle, making sure that Elmo and Scrooge couldn't see the pleading look she was giving her guardian.

True Miranda didn't really know Elmo but she thought it could be cool to have someone around her age to hang out with and talk to. Besides, he seemed like a pretty intelligent guy, not anything like what she was expecting since all that she knew about boys her age came from the Beagle boys and TV so you could say her expectations were way lower than what Elmo had presented.

"Ugh, fine!" Flintheart exclaimed, unhappy as he saw his niece and the strange teen jump in happiness, a little bit to much happiness if you asked the elderly duck.

Launchpad eventually ran back to the group, completely ignorant of the strange conversation that had taken place as he looked over at his employer.

" The helicopter is ready." He said, obviously desperate to take of in the air.

"Good Launchpad, you two,"Scrooge said suddenly turning his attention on the two teens in front of him who immediately ceased in their celebrations to listen to the richest duck in the world.

"You will be coming with us," He said pointing at Elmo before turning his attention on Miranda. He sighed and thought over it for a moment before gesturing towards the helicopter that was parked nearby.

"You might as well come to, just don't cause any trouble." He said grudgingly, knowing full well that she was going to anyway.

Miranda smiled happily and walked over to the helicopter with Elmo, not really noticing when the teen rat took her hand, but her Uncle fortunately did and walked right in between them, much to the teen rats unspoken annoyance since he didn't want to be fired on the first day after only two seconds of being hired.

But, Elmo noticed with satisfaction the elderly duck could not stop the pair sitting together in the helicopter since the Flintheart had been pretty determined to sit next to his competitor, a choice he later regretted as he saw the pair settled in the back of the helicopter and glared at his new employee.

Miranda didn't seem to notice this and instead turned to Elmo as she had decided to get to know him a little better, especially since she was partly responsible to him getting employed.

"So why did you want to work at the construction site?" She asked curiously, noting the strange teen's blush as he unknowingly slid his hand away from hers with interest, what was he embarrassed about?

"Oh, my parents just moved to Duckburg and well, they basically told me to get a job and since there apparently isn't that much working going in many places except construction, I decided to sign up." He said meekly, staring pointedly at his shoes and blushing for some strange reason that Miranda still hadn't found a reason for.

"Oh," Miranda let the conversation drift of there since it started to feel a little awkward to talk to him, especially since he didn't seem to be able to look her in the eyes.

Luckily their apparent silence in the otherwise empty helicopter didn't last long as the other the pilot finally climbed in after doing whatever the both elderly ducks had asked him to do while the two teens had been talking. Launchpad quickly started up the engine as soon as he had climbed into his seat.

The helicopter took off with a lurch that seemed to startle the rest of the occupants, causing Miranda to fall a little sideways so that she was accidentally leaning against the already nervous teen rat whose face turned an even darker shade of red than before, if that were possible.

Miranda quickly pulled back, the blush on her face now equally matching Elmo's as they turned to opposite ends of the helicopter, helping the others in their search for the robots so they could lure it towards the Duckburg Reservoir.

Apparently, during the two teen's awkward conversation, Launchpad had spent his time tying a rather strange poster to the end of the helicopter that suggested that the Beagle Boys mother had fleas. Miranda watched the robot driving criminals reactions with amusement before turning back to the rat teen that was sitting right next to her, still wanting to know more about him.

"So..." Miranda tried to think of something to ask him but found herself suddenly to nervous to talk, so she made something up on the spot.

And we all know how well that usually turns out.

"How old are you Sparky?"

Elmo raised an eyebrow at her question before shrugging and looking out the window, His voice breaking through the sudden silence that had happened between them.

"I'm 17, how about you?"

Miranda blushed, suddenly happy that he couldn't see her as she looked out the other window, unsure of what to say.

If she told him she was fifteen...He might laugh at her, or treat her like everyone else did, like she was a stupid kid. So instead Miranda went for the easier path and lied, trying not to notice how fake she sounded.

"Oh, I'm 17 to." She said, watching as her uncle straightened up and appeared to suddenly be very interested in their conversation and decided to change the subject.

"Exactly how good are you at electronics by the way?" She asked him, suddenly aware of how much trust she was putting on his so called 'abilities' that she hadn't even seen to believe yet.

"Oh, I'd say pretty good, I mean I've even built my own TV and computer on my own." He said modestly, almost as if he didn't really think much of his achievement.

"Cool Sparky." Miranda said in an awed voice, clearly impressed by the teens talents and felt a little jealous since she knew she wasn't really good at anything but stealing, and even then she messed up every once in a while.

Elmo smiled and looked back down at his feet again before asking Miranda a question that was left to hang in the air for a moment, mostly because Miranda didn't know how to answer it.

"What are your hobbies?"

Miranda had to think on that one for a moment, suddenly aware that she didn't really have any hobbies outside of reading and crime. And she certainly wasn't going to tell him that she robbed banks as a part time thing so she decided to go with the first one that came to mind.

"Oh, I like to read, you know boring stuff like that, I'm not really that talented at anything." She said quietly, scratching her head in thought , Elmo frowned at this and tilted his head so she was looking him in the eye, he smile reassuring her as he spoke.

"Everyone's talented at something, you just haven't found yours yet. I'm sure you'll find something." He said cheerfully, his happy attitude somehow rubbing off on Miranda, who smiled back.

"Hey we're here!" Launchpad called out to the other passengers in the helicopter, causing the teens discussion to come to a close as they watched the strange pilot fly them over the Reservoir and to the lake beyond, then looked out the window in time to see the robots jump in after them, immediately sinking under the lake after doing so.

"Hah!" Flintheart laughed, obviously to happy to notice that he was now going to have to pay for the damage not only caused by the robots, but also the damage the water would have done to his robots.

"Hey I just got a call from Gyro Mr. Mcd, he's saying that the new models were made to be water resistant." Launchpad said nervously watching as his employers face of victory immediately fell. Miranda slowly moved back towards the window and nearly screamed in fear as the helicopter slowly started to fall with the water, the large bodies of her Uncle's robots now completely standing over them.

"Well, now we're dead." Elmo said despondently while the adults quickly freaked. Miranda jumped away from the window as she saw one of the robots hands move closer to the window and accidentally fell into Elmo, who held her as far away from the Robot's hands as he could.

"Launchpad get us outta here!" Scrooge yelled as the pilot complied, the helicopter lurching forward as they quickly took off into the air.

They managed to take off just in time as the robots were about to crush the helicopter in their hands. Miranda sighed with relief as they stared to gain height over the city she had been in all her life.

"So what to we do now ." Launchpad asked as they flew closer to Duckburg, the helicopter slowly dropping as his employer decided what to do next.

"We go and pick up Gyro Launchpad, he's the robot expert around here." The elderly duck said confidently, not noticing the glares he was receiving from behind him by two suddenly rather angry teens.

The helicopter soon landed and Elmo and Miranda decided to stay in the vehicle until the grown ups come back with the apparent 'robot expert.'

Silence reigned for those few moments, something that had been happening quite a bit ever since Elmo had met this strange girl.

But of course right now his thoughts were focused on the elderly duck's unintentional insult. Elmo glared out the window at the fallen down wood shack where the apparent 'expert' lived. Right, like a guy who knows all there is to know about robots would live here.

Then again... Elmo thought back to his own home, a small dingy apartment in the middle of the slums part of Duckburg where his parents were always ruining his experiments, whether or not it was by intention Elmo didn't know but it always managed to put him behind in his own research. Maybe it wasn't so different for Gyro?

The grown ups came back out of the shack, both of the elderly ducks dragging a rather unhappy inventor to the helicopter as the teens heard his apparent excuses not to go up into the air.

"Come on Mr. Mcduck, I'm sure you don't need my help, besides didn't you say you had another expert with you?" The red headed bird said desperately as Elmo smiled at the (again unintentional) compliment.

"Yes we do Gyro, but he's not the one who built the infernal things so you have to help." The richest duck in the world said forcefully as they all pushed him into the helicopter, giving the inventor only minute to strap himself in before Launchpad took off again, taking them over the city again in search for the rampaging robot robbers.

Miranda was in the middle of wondering exactly how many times they would have to do this when she suddenly spotted the robots doing what could possibly be the only thing that could make Scrooge any angrier than he was now.

"Ummm...Mr. Mcduck? You're gonna want to see this." The duck teen said meekly as she pointed out the window, the elderly duck's eyes following as his expression went form confused to incredibly angry in a millisecond.

"I hope you're satisfied Gyro! Your robots are destroying my Money Bin!" He growled at the gangly bird who shrugged, an act that surprised every one else in the helicopter as they all knew that you don't just shrug off Scrooge McDuck.

"That's good." He said simply, not noticing his employer's face grow even angrier, if that were even possible.

"Good!" he exclaimed as the bird nodded before continuing, his explanation most likely saving his career.

"Yes, the harder they work, the more energy they use, eventually they'll have to recharge their batteries, when they do we'll be waiting for them!" He said happily as he directed for Launchpad to fly to the nearest electric control center. They soon flew over it and Miranda watched amused as the rat teen next to her spoke suddenly, his voice filled with excited understanding as he looked at the building below him, really he just reminded Miranda of a cute nerd.

Wait what?

"Oh, I see you'll connect all the power in Duckburg into one electric cord each for the robots and they'll be over charged, right!" Gyro nodded at his explanation, obviously happy that someone else understood his plan without him having to explain it.

They landed the helicopter again, this time the teen joined them as Elmo wanted to help Gyro with the electrical work whilst Miranda, well she was just bored and decided to watch some science being done.

Once Elmo was done with his part in the proceedings he walked back over to Miranda, his expression one completely made up of exhaustion.

"Working hard Sparky?" She said amusingly as the older teen raised an eyebrow at her, obviously observing the fact that she hadn't done anything but his mind was elsewhere.

"Guess so, by the way, your completely stuck with calling me that aren't you?" He asked, leaning against a nearby wall as they spoke, his exhaustion not allowing him to stand.

"Guess so Sparky, why does it bother you?" She asked back, hoping quietly she hadn't offended the only friend she had made in a long time. Luckily Elmo just shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck in order to relax the tensed muscles.

"Not really, it's just that I've never had a nickname before." He said happily, allowing the conversation to drop there as he was suddenly called back to help in the plan. Miranda watched him go happily before going to help herself, knowing full well that she didn't even understand the first thing when it came to electrical work.

She really just wanted an excuse to talk to Elmo again.

* * *

"Here they come!" Miranda yelled excitedly from the window she had been looking out of unhappily after she may or may not have blown a few fuses when trying to help.

"We better start then." Scrooge said quickly as he, Glomgold and Scrooge ran over to the switches, waiting for Gyro's instruction to start.

"We have to wait until all four of them are recharging." He said simply, his hand gripping the switch tightly as the group watched the robots rip the electric cords from their places and stared to sip from them like one would water through a straw.

Sadly only three of them managed to start sipping the electric currents before Gyro called out for him and the two elderly ducks to flip the switches.

"We can't wait any longer!" He cried as they pulled the switch, Miranda watching humorously as the Beagle Boys yelled out in surprise, the duck teen being able to see the three burglars jump as the electric shock went through the controls and shocked them.

Finally the three robots fell forwards and were unresponsive to their mother's call for a few minutes before Bigtime was finally able to answer, Miranda clearly seeing him lifting himself off the floor f his control room.

"We're okay Ma. But we might glow in the dark for a while." He said tiredly as he climbed out of the now opened head of the robot, his mother's robot hand lifting him into her control room before doing the same for the rest of her children.

"We only got three of them!" Gyro yelled afraid as they all slowly stared backing towards the door.

"Then let's get outta here!" Glomgold yelled fearfully, the others following him as they ran out into the helicopter, immediately taking off into the air for what felt like the hundredth time today, causing Miranda to briefly wonder just how much gas this helicopter had.

"How much gas does that Robot have again?" Launchpad asked curiously as they once again flew over the city, the pilot's frown confirming the duck teen's fears as the elder inventor answered, obviously perplexed at the pilot's question.

"Another 24 hours why?" He asked as Elmo began to frown, obviously picking up on what Launchpad was going to say next, just as Miranda had done only a few minutes ago.

"Because we only have 24 seconds until we run outta gas!" he exclaimed. However the two elderly ducks didn't seem to be as worried as the others in the helicopter were as Scrooge quickly ordered his pilot on where exactly they were going to go next.

"Launchpad, can you make it to Glomgold's construction site?" Launchpad shrugged at his employer's question as he tried to speed up the helicopter just as Ma Beagle's robot was about to take another swipe at them.

"We'll find out soon ." He said quickly as he flew the helicopter over to the Construction Site where this all began.

They flew over to the Site's loading bay before the richest duck in the world frowned, quickly seeing the large iron doors were closed. Luckily Glomgold manages to open it quickly with one of his many remotes that he happened to have in his coat at the time.

"I have to admit, there is a certain style about you Flintheart Glomgold." Scrooge said as they flew inside, the elderly duck quickly relaying his plan to the others in the helicopter before ordering them up the sides of the building to ready the quick hardening concrete.

The robot crashed in only moments later, destroying the helicopter with one quick stomp of its foot, the Beagle Family that resided in the robot celebrating happily while Miranda and Elmo frowned at their overly violent ways before quickly turning on the concrete valves, the rest of the group on the other side of the building following suit as the robot was quickly subdued, the Beagle boys immediately trying to make a break for it, despite the quick warnings of their mother who was still inside the large robot.

"No boys, wait!" She yelled in vain as the concrete hardened, quickly stopping the Burglar brothers in their escape attempt.

Miranda and Elmo quickly climbed back down the tower they had been on to meet up with the grown ups, who were currently talking to the authorities as the Beagle Boys were taken away, their mother having escaped only a few moments ago.

The duck teen turned to her unexpected friend, a grin placed on her face as she spoke to him, happy that the events of today were finally over.

"So Sparky how did you like your first day?" She asked, Elmo shrugged as they both walked over to the rat teen's new employer, watching as the construction site was investigated for any other signs of robbery before answering.

"Oh, I dunno, it was pretty boring now that I think about it." He said sarcastically, smirking at the laughing Miranda as they finally reached the second richest duck, who was surprisingly angrier than Miranda had seen him all day.

"I have to rebuild half the city and I can't use my robots!" he yelled , meanwhile Scrooge tapped him on the shoulder, his grin assuring Miranda of dirty tricks.

"McDuck's Construction would be glad to help you in the repair work." He said, his tone could melt butter but Miranda and her Uncle knew better.

"And exactly how much is this help gonna cost me?" He snarled, knowing that it was impossible for him to refuse. Scrooge's grin grew as he answered, his response causing Miranda to laugh out loud as Elmo smirked, looking away so that his new employer couldn't hear his muffled giggles.

"How much you got?" Glomgold however, did not find his answer as amusing as the teens behind him and yelled loudly.

"Scrooge McDuck you are a low down, ruthless rat!" Elmo frowned at this for a second but couldn't help but continue in his giggles at the elderly duck's competitor's response.

"What can I say Flintheart? You bring out the best in me." Scrooge walked off then, his laughter following him as Miranda's uncle cursed angrily, the two teens deciding to leave him to his angry fit as they went of to buy ice cream in celebration of Elmo being employed and you know, the whole not dying thing.

Plus they were really hungry.

Miranda sat with Elmo in the Ice cream booth, her mind clearly else where as she watched the city beginning to repair itself, almost amazed at how fast it took for the city to react. Say what you will about Duckburg, but it sure did know how to put everything back to normal after a crisis.

Miranda looked over at Elmo, giggling as she saw the Ice cream mustache that was left on his face.

_Then again_, The teen duck thought to herself happily, _change is something this city is suprisingly good at, maybe I should give it a try sometime._

* * *

**Finally, jeez that was long. **

**Review if you want but I don't blame you if your tired at this point, I know I am.**


	8. Chapter 8 part 1

**Review if you can and I own only Miranda.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

It had been two months since Elmo was hired by Miranda's uncle and already they were becoming best friends.

During the days when Elmo wasn't at high school and Miranda wasn't studying under the watchful eye of her ever instructive nanny, they would go to his lab in Glomgold's electronic division building to hang out and talk about their lives so far. (Elmo's being the most interesting since Miranda didn't really have a lot to talk about in her opinion.) Sometimes they would even go to the nearby Ice cream parlour on the weekends to continue in their chatting.

Elmo use to think of these as dates until he realized that Miranda just thought of it as a good excuse to continue talking to Elmo about his research as she was genuinely interested. Also, Miranda seemed to think of Elmo only as a friend and Elmo sadly realized that he would have to do the same.

Until recently of course.

* * *

It had been a perfectly normal Saturday, with normal events up until the very moment he walked into his lab that morning.

He gently opened the door of his personal world, the smell of short circuiting wires and fresh electricity reaching his long nose, making him smile appreciatively until he nearly dropped his suitcase filled with new, now possibly broken circuits when he saw the sight in front of him.

It was Miranda, in the usual white Lab coat and Safety glasses he always insisted on her wearing when he was tutoring her in electrical work but that wasn't what was making fumble around like the fool he clearly wasn't. No, the reason he was acting this way would be because she was leaning over the bench, her back completely to him and her backside in the air.

She quickly jumped off the bench when she heard the sound of the older teen's briefcase hitting the ground, a sudden blush slapped onto her face as she realized what must have happened, completely unsure on what to do next as they stood quietly in the Lab, the only sounds being the slight buzzing of a nearby electric current that Elmo had left on by accident last night.

Eventually Miranda found it appropriate to break the silence, especially since she felt as though that she was the reason the silence started. She cleared her throat and stepped sideways, revealing the breakfast she had set up for him.

"I knew you probably didn't eat anything this morning so I decided to get you some food." She said nervously as Elmo nodded, walking quickly to the bench and taking a seat, happily noting that the breakfast she had set up didn't take up that much space, leaving him with enough room to do his work and eat at the same time.

"Thanks Miranda." He said gratefully as the other teen walked quickly out of the rat's way and towards the lab door, already feeling more stupid than she had any other day that week as she looked at her watch.

"No Problem, I gotta go though, my uncle wanted to see me for some reason and I'm already late, see you later today?" She said quickly, not really waiting for the other teen's response as she ran down the hall and into the elevator, clearly already more late to her uncle's request than she had been putting on.

She quickly clicked the ground floor button of the elevator and sighed in relief and embarrassment as the elevator got going, only to groan in frustration as someone on the lower floor from Elmo had also clicked for the same elevator. Miranda got ready to glare at whoever was stopping her from getting to her uncle, even though she was clearly already late. Only to stop as she saw a duck around her age pile into the elevator, carrying a potted plant in both arms and mumbling quietly at how some of the scientists in the building could be so rude.

Feeling kind of guilty for wanting to glare at the already distressed duck she quickly took one of the plants carefully from his hold so that it would be easier for him to click for the floor he wanted.

He turned, almost completely ready to yell at whoever had taken one of his subjects from him only to stop as he saw Miranda, almost immediately recognising her as his bosses niece. Once he did he frowned and looked at the floor, almost as he expected her to smash the plant on the carpeted floor of the elevator or something else equally as horrible as that when her voice interrupted him.

"Sorry but, do you need some help?" She asked carefully, afraid that the duck might start yelling if she accidentally said it in the wrong tone, so she was surprised when he sort of relaxed and nodded, quickly pressing for a floor only a few down from the ground, completely cancelling out any chance Miranda had of even thinking of getting to her uncle's request even a few minutes late.

"Thank you." He said, in the same tone that Elmo had used only a few moments ago, which took Miranda by surprise that she didn't even notice when the elevator stopped until the other duck moved. Miranda blinked for a moment before following him, wondering just how out of touch she was with time today as the pair walked down the hallways in silence for a few moment before Miranda broke it, clearly hoping to make more friends in the building her best friend worked at.

"My name's Miranda." She said kindly, as she stopped suddenly in the hallway as she held out her free hand to the smaller duck, who looked at her for a moment before taking it.

"I know your Glomgold's niece. My name's Reginald." He said politely, shaking her hand before opening the empty lab next to them and placing his plant on a nearby bench, Miranda doing the same as she looked at her watch, nearly sweating as she knew exactly how angry her uncle would be at her for being so late.

"Well it was great to meet you Reggie, but I'm running late and I have to go. I'll see you around sometime?" She said quickly, one again not listening to the response as she quickly ran down the hall, leaving a rather confused duck in the still empty lab, the only evidence the younger duckling had ever been there was the plant she had placed on the bench.

"Sure." He said sadly to the empty room, thinking that she had left so that she didn't have to be around him for much longer. Of course she didn't mean it that way but he didn't know that, after all countless others had used the same excuse on him, especially girls. The younger duck sighed and turned to his plants, the only friends he had as he spoke to them, his voice slightly encouraged as they twisted and flourished rather quickly in his gentle hold.

"At least I have you right?"

* * *

Miranda pile drived her way through the streets of Duckburg, stopping only for a moment to check the street signs just to make sure that she was actually going in the right direction before finally running all the way up her Uncle's driveway, not even noticing when the thorns scratched into her skin until she was practically breaking down the main door to her home.

Miss Canary slowly opened the door, her muscles growing slowly weaker over the past few days but she maintained her work, not wanting to retire until she was absolutely sure that Miranda's new friend could change her life for the better. She opened the door, the creaking of the door following the cracking of her tired bones as Miranda nearly tackled her in a quick hug that took the breath out of the poor woman and ran as fast as she could through the house, completely unaware of just how unruly she was actually being until she made it to the door of her Uncle's office.

Miranda listened carefully to the mumbling voices on the other side of the door, making out the Scottish accent of her uncle and the strange American accent of someone else. Once again cursing her lateness as she now had to wait until her Uncle's meeting was over, and who knows how long that would take, Miranda decided to use this precious time to quickly check herself over and was amused to see that she was still wearing the white lab coat and safety glasses from Elmo's lab and quickly took them off, placing them carefully on a small table not that far away from her Uncle's office as she heard the wooden doors in front of her suddenly opening.

Completely surprised and unsure of what to do, Miranda quickly took a seat on a nearby chair that her uncle always kept out for other s that would be lining up to see him.

As she sat she looked up in time to see her uncle bidding a strange dog goodbye in what was possibly the most polite fashion her uncle could muster as he then slammed the door shut, waiting for the next poor schmuck to meet him.

Miranda and this stranger stood silently in the hallway for a moment, Miranda clearly not wanting to go inside to greet her uncle but at the same time she didn't want to stay here and start conversation with this strange dog. So she just sat quietly in her seat for a few minutes until the dog interrupted her inner debate, his tone reminding her of a fake sales person selling her something they knew would break on the first use.

"Nine out of ten of businessmen suggest that you don't waste his time." He said, almost as if he knew how late Miranda actually was. The teen raised an eyebrow at the dog before slowly standing out of seat and walking into her uncle's office, looking back only for a moment to see the dog leaving the hallway.

Shrugging her shoulders Miranda continued into her Uncle's office and stood in front of his desk. At this point he was looking over the documents the dog must have left behind before looking up at her for a moment, his face telling her just how annoyed he was at her for being late.

"Take a seat Miranda." He said plainly, noting how discouraged the teen looked as she did as he asked. Miranda tried to look every around the office apart from where her uncle was sitting, she even stared at the rather ugly painting above his desk, something that she started to regret as the painting seemingly reminded her of a dying pigeon.

"Miranda." The teen looked back at her exhausted uncle as he quickly packed away all of his paperwork, clearly finished with it as Miranda had never known him to drop his work just to talk to her.

"Yes uncle?" She asked, keeping her eyes on his, as she knew that if her eyes strayed than her uncle would be able to read her like a book and know that she had been with Elmo. However, Glomgold seemingly surprised his niece as instead of berating her for not being here on time he instead held up the day's news paper, the front page clearly showing the image of Scrooge Mcduck on a camel pointing to a map in his hands.

"Scrooge has found a new goldmine out in the desert and I intended to find it first." He said simply, placing the newspaper back down on the desk before he spoke again, his voice sounded a little off, like he was...awkward? Miranda shook her head, no way, Flintheart was anything but nervous, there must be something else going on.

"I need to know whether or not you're coming along." He said simply, again surprising the teen as his tone wasn't ordering her, just asking. That was definitely a new occurrence as her uncle never really asked her for anything, if he wanted something from her or wanted her to do something for him, he would just say so. So when he just asks her what she wants she's usually a little confused, just as she was at that moment.

"Of course I'm coming along uncle," she said happily, attempting to lighten the mood in any way she could. "When don't I?"

Flintheart nodded at this then picked up his phone before it could ring. His tone was strict and to the point, something that made Miranda sigh with relief as she knew that he was back to his normal self.

"Money talks, I listen." He said simply, his Scottish accent making him seem threatening as he waited for the person on the other side to tell him what he needed to know.

"Have my Jet plane ready in half an hour." He said, slamming down the phone just as two large thugs walked into the room and stood behind Flint heart's chair, both of them staring at Miranda in a way that made her look pointedly at her uncle, trying not to show how uncomfortable she really felt.

"We can beat Mcduck to the magic lamp, he's going by camel!" He announced and Miranda, once again felt completely out of the loop as she wondered just what the hell was up with her uncle and finding hidden treasures and other rather fantasy things lately.

"Uhh, how are we gonna find him ? We don't have the map." The large duck thug asked, his voice a ton lower than what Miranda expected, the dog thug nearby nodding in agreement, his head briefly reminding Miranda of one of those bobble heads.

"Oh but we do boys! We do!" He laughed before he got out of his seat, the thugs moving away as he pulled out a magnifying glass and shined it over the newspaper, making sure that the map was visible in the glass. Miranda raised her eyebrows but said nothing; mostly because she could still see the looks she was getting from the two thugs and suddenly felt as though she had changed her mind about going on this adventure with her uncle, especially since it wasn't going to be just Flintheart and her alone.

"Uncle," Her voice broke through the confused silence as the thugs were still trying to figure out what their employer was trying to show them.

"What Miranda," He said absently as he continued to point at the map in the picture, the thugs slowly starting to understand what he was trying to show them but still a little confused.

"I was wondering if...OH FOR GOD'S SAKE HE'S POINTING AT THE MAP IN THE PICTURE, YOU IDIOTS!" Miranda yelled the last part, her voice frightening the thugs for only a second, then their expressions turned angry and they most likely to say something well off the mark when her uncle spoke first, handing the newspaper to the two thugs before practically shoving them out the door, knowing full well that a fight was going to break out if he let them stay.

"Go and tell my pilot that I want to leave in the next hour or he's fired." He said quickly, slamming the door in their faces before they could say anything. Flintheart turned to glare at his niece only to find her sitting in her seat, her head had fully turned away from him as she crossed her arms childishly, quickly proclaiming what she had wanted to ask him, her tone suggesting that she might change her mind about joining him if he didn't.

"Can Elmo come with us?" Flintheart almost broke the magnifying glass in his hand as he thought about his niece and employee spending any more time together than he thought they were, which was clearly not the case as they seem to have gotten quite close despite their 'limited' time together.

It wasn't as if he was worried about her...No it was because...He wanted her to take over the company some day and how is she supposed to know anything about running a business when she's hanging out with that boy, yeah...that's what it was...

Flintheart walked back to his chair and sat in it, quickly thinking over the pros and cons of letting the gangly rat teen come along before sighing, knowing full well that he could just get another electronic expert to come along, but then Miranda would refuse to come, and he really needed her to since he had made another deal with Scrooge that he and his niece were faster at finding treasure than Scrooge and his nephews, a deal he was now starting to regret as it was only bringing him more and more trouble as time went on.

The elderly bird groaned then looked back up at his niece, whom he knew before that point was glaring lasers into his skull, when did she start getting so rebellious? Over the past few months it feels like she was really starting to get that fighting edge that Glomgold's were best known for, except using it against him, that wasn't something he had really been expecting and was still trying to get use to it. It wasn't as if Flintheart didn't want that to happen, he was...he was just expecting her to stay younger for at least a little longer.

The elderly duck shook his head, trying to rid those strange thoughts from his head as he finally spoke, his voice completely straight and strict as he laid down the rules, somehow his own worries manages to make their way into the instructions for his only niece.

"Fine, but you will not sit together on the plane and you both have to come with us when we search the mountain, capeesh?" Miranda raised an eyebrow at his rules but agreed, not wanting to travel with just her, her ever dismissive uncle and those unsettling thugs.

"Okay, thanks uncle! I'll go tell Elmo the good news!" She said happily, surprising her uncle by hugging him, it was a quick and uncomfortable hug that felt like the ones they mostly kept for the cameras when they were in public but at that moment Miranda was to happy to notice any different. She then ran full force out of the office before her uncle could tell her otherwise, the distant, tired yelling of her nanny the only distinction the Flintheart got that his niece had left the building.

Flintheart sighed and relaxed in his chair for a moment before the phone rang again, surely condemning the poor shmuck on the other side to unemployment as the elderly duck got back into gear, more than ready to take down Scrooge as he picked up the phone.

* * *

Only a few minutes later Miranda had ran all the way back to Elmo's building, practically swan dived into the elevator just as it was going to close. As soon as the elevator landed on Elmo's floor she was off again, slammed open the doors of Elmo's lab and telling the startled rat the news in the fastest voice Elmo had ever seen her use.

Sadly Elmo didn't really get a choice on whether he wanted to go or not as the teen duck dragged him out of his building and to the nearest Taxi to the airport were Glomgold's Jet was waiting. Elmo watched his place of work disappear from the view of his side window in the small, rather cramped vehicle and turned to his friend, who was breathing rather heavily after all the running she had done just this morning.

"So where are we going?" Miranda nearly collapsed after the rat's question and was about to answer when the cab finally pulled into the car park of the airport and threw the driver his cash, taking another deep breath before she grabbed Elmo's hand and practically dragged him into the large airport towards the stretch where the Jet was waiting.

"We're going on an adventure!" Was all Miranda had yelled at the confused teen as she practically threw him into the flying death trap, or at least it was in Elmo's eyes, due to his fear of flying that he had sadly forgotten to mention to Miranda, who by this point was talking to her uncle and looked ready to fall over in exhaustion as she sat in a seat on the other side of the plane from the poor confused teen, who gave her a quizzical look.

Not looking over to him she quickly and silently held her cell phone in the air for a moment. Elmo nodded to himself and quickly pulled his out, suddenly thankful for his embarrassing moment a few weeks ago when he had asked for her number.

_Sorry I can't sit with you; my Uncle said that you could go only if you sat away from me._

Elmo frowned to him then texted back, a little annoyed that she didn't even bother asking him on whether or not he actually wanted to come with her on another death defying adventure.

_Why am I here again? _He texted back, unknowingly sounding allot harsher than he had meant as he saw her frown sadly at her phone. Elmo felt his phone vibrate slightly in response but was too busy freaking when 's voice came over the speaker system and told them that they would be taking off in a minute. As soon as he was able to regain control over his limbs he picked up his cell phone again, unsurprised to see two new texts from the teen on the other side of the plane.

_I'm sorry that I dragged you away from your work Sparky, it's just that uncle's knew goons are giving me the creeps, also I thought maybe you'd want to share in an adventure._

_Are you okay Sparky? You're shaking like a fuzzy maraca over there._

Elmo would have laughed at the last text but was too busy freaking when the plane's engines started roaring to life. The teen then picked up his cell phone from where he had dropped it and texted back like a crazy person as he tried to forget the documentaries he use to watch as a child on plane crashes and the reasons behind them.

_It's nothing I just hate flying. By the way we better stop texting now; the signals from the phones will cut off the planes. We can talk when we land okay?_ He texted before waiting for a second and finishing off with one last sentence.

_By the way if it looks like I'm crying while we're in the air, I'm not, I actually just tear up in high altitudes._

Elmo could hear the muffled laughter of his friend from the other side of the plane and smiled.

That smile was quickly replaced with a look of complete sheer terror as the plane then left the ground.

* * *

Miranda settled into her seat as the plane took off, briefly noting that her uncle's goons were sitting a little to close than she would have preferred, especially since every single seat on the plane was free yet they decided to sit in the aisle right next to her, giving her only an arms length of space away from the dim-witted pair.

The teen duck decided to best not to even look at them as she instead turned off her phone and pulled out a book from the bag she had prepared in the small seconds she had before she left Glomgold mansion to retrieve her friend.

It was a small book and unintentionally lagged in the middle, but still it provided more educational value than the conversation the goons were trying to start up with her.

"Hey, you're Miranda aren't you? The boss' kid?" The duck said, his intelligence described best in his voice, low and pitiful.

"He's not my dad and do you really think I would be here if I wasn't related to him?" She said, wondering how good their memory is considering they had seen her before in her uncle's office only thirty minutes ago.

The thug shrugged his shoulder, not sure of what else to say before his friend took over, his tone clearly showing more confidence than the other goon.

"Well I think you're pretty hot for a Glomgold." He said as the duck could tell that his voice, despite the more confident personality underneath, was just as low and unintelligent as his friend as Miranda rolled her eyes, not looking up once from her book as she retaliated, her voice just as even and unemotional as when she had answered the other goon's question.

"How good are you at parachutes?" Her question slightly confused the dog before he smirked, thinking that she was flirting back as he leaned over to her, but luckily not enough for the teen to feel his gross breath, just as well to, as he then let out what must have been the saddest attempt at a laugh the teen had ever heard.

"I'd say pretty good why? You wanna see the stars hun?" Miranda smirked and for the first time in her conversation with the two simple minded thugs looked up from her book, her expression one of held in hilarity as she spoke.

"Because it looks like you're boss might just throw you out of the plane right now if you don't stop talking to me." She then gestured her head towards the rather angry duck that was waiting at the end of the aisle where he had heard the whole conversation, his glare seemingly capable of tearing holes through the thug's heads as they quickly moved away from Miranda, who was once again stifling laughter.

Flintheart quickly took the place of his hired goons, his voice a lot rougher due to his growing anger. Miranda use to remember the times when she was scared of how low her uncle's voice could go when he was angry, but this was somehow different, like he was angry over a completely different reason then what Miranda had usually seen.

"We'll be landing soon, tells your friend not to throw up on my plane when we do." He then stood again and wondered off to the other side of the plane, the teen duck briefly looking at the book she had been reading before sighing and taking off for Elmo's seat, knowing that he might just explode in fear if she didn't tell him what was going to happen.

* * *

Soon the plane was landed and the group quickly walked towards the hill, everyone doing their best to catch up with Flintheart as he was walking faster than all of the others put together. Miranda purposely dragged behind so that she could speak with the already exhausted Elmo, who had absolutely no experience in climbing mountains in order to find ancient treasures.

But that would soon change of course, especially when you're hired by the second richest duck in the world.

"Hey, you alright Sparky?" She asked, watching as the rat teen took a moment to catch his breath before answering, doing his best to cover up just how exhausted he was.

"What, me? I'm fine, just needed to get the blood pumping, that's all." He said, smiling faintly as they continued to trudge up the mountain, the goons stopping early as they couldn't keep up the pace. Miranda sighed briefly in relief as she noticed the absence of the rather creepy goons and continued with her uncle and Elmo, who was starting to get use to the elderly duck's speed. Eventually they managed to get up to one side of the mountain.

Miranda nearly crashed into her uncle as he stopped dead in front of a large bolted down door that lead into the cave. Flintheart and Elmo inspected the rock for a moment while Miranda went over to a nearby rock to relax her tired legs. She looked up briefly to see how they were getting on, only to roll her eyes when she saw her uncle pull out a few large sticks of dynamite.

"Honestly, is there nothing else he can think of?" She mused quietly to herself before quickly getting up and hiding behind a larger rock, a rather frightened Elmo joining her only moments later.

"What the hell is he doing? He could kill us all!" The teen squeaked loudly as Miranda covered her ears with her hands, gesturing that Elmo do the same.

"Don't worry," She yelled loudly so that her friend could hear, "Uncle knows what he's doing."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Elmo answered simply.

Just then a large explosion went off, random rocks fell off the sides of the ledge as Miranda looked over the top of their hiding place, making sure that her uncle was okay before standing and practically dragging her friend over to the new entrance of the cave, taking a moment to take in its surroundings before sitting Elmo on a rock nearby.

"You okay?" she said, her hand briefly touching the elder teens cheek as he looked up at her, his eyes telling her immediately that he was only a little shaken, but otherwise okay. Miranda smiled and was about to go over to her uncle, who was at that moment scaling a large pillar in a contest to get a lamp that sat on top before Scrooge could when Elmo's hand stopped her.

Thinking that he was worried for her getting hurt or something like that Miranda gave his hand a slight squeeze before walking into the cave, just in time for her to see the genie come out of the lamp, effectively cutting of the argument the two elderly ducks had been having beforehand.

"I feel like I've been cooped up in that lamp for centuries." The strange being said happily as Miranda just stared, her mouth agape in wonder as her mind evaluated what she was seeing.

Genie's were real and so was magic. Miranda was still processing this fact when other things started to come to her attention. If Genies were real then what else was? What was stopping other fictional magic form being real? Witches, potions, dragons, were they all real?

Suddenly Miranda felt very small in comparison to the supernatural being that was floating not that far away from her.

No one seemed to notice Miranda's life changing revelation as the Genie was too busy talking to the two old ducks in front of it, asking which one of them was its master.

"Me!" They both yelled before turning to glare at each other. This was around the time that Elmo decided to join Miranda in the cave and was sadly reduced to the same expression when the saw the floating being.

"Is that..." He whispered to Miranda, who could only nod as she watched the strange figure move around, listening to the two elderly ducks argue. Just at that moment Scrooge's nephews slid down a rope into the cave.

"Last one down is a rotten egg!" One of them called happily as they slid down the rope and into the cave beyond, also starring in wonder at the Genie who grinned suddenly as he was now completely sure of how to settle this strange occurrence.

"That's it!" He proclaimed before snapping his finger and disappearing completely, causing all the young ducks in the cave to follow Elmo and Miranda in gaping in amazement.

"When will I learn not to do that?" The Genie's voice said through the emptiness before he reappeared again, talking directly to the two elderly ducks in front of him.

"Now here's what we're gonna do." The Genie said, gesturing to the two would be masters. "Whoever wins becomes the master of the lamp!" Scrooge frowned at this statement, his nit picking attitude coming out full force as he questioned the being.

"A race? From where to where?" He said as the Genie smiled and floated towards the richest duck in the world. Miranda was still taking in the simple fact that this was actually happening when her thoughts were snapped back to the present by Scrooge's question before briefly wondering on exactly how long this race would actually take as it took them 48 hours to get here by plane.

"From this very spot to where you live!" The Genie proclaimed happily as Miranda noticed her uncle's frown deepen before he spoke to the supernatural being, his temper evidently blocking the logic that he was talking to someone that could easily wipe him from existence with a snap of his fingers.

"Now wait a minute Genie, my house is on the other side of Duckburg. I have farther to go." He grumbled, ignoring the immediate face palming from his rival, employee and niece. Of course that's what he'd argue about, not of the actual very existence of the Genie himself.

And then it started again, the elderly ducks began to argue again but were interrupted by the Genie before it could go any further.

"All right, all right!" The being yelled, obviously growing quickly annoyed by the pair's constant need to argue, no matter what the ridiculous reason.

"Is there one location you can agree on as a finish?" The Genie asked wearingly as Miranda already knew what the answer would be.

"No!" They bother yelled. _I must be psychic! _Miranda thought sarcastically as the pair continued to glare at each other, the triplets nearby however, managed to come up with a location for the competitors to meet up.

"The Ice-cream Parlour!" They shouted happily while Miranda smirked, thinking back to her first mission. Sadly she was so busy caught up in her memories that she didn't notice that she was no longer in the cave with her uncle. In fact, she was standing right in the sitting room of Mcduck's mansion.

"What? What just happened?" Miranda said suddenly, confused by the sudden change of scenery as she, and the others who had magically appeared with her, tumbled onto the floor, obviously both exhausted and confused by the passing events of the day.

"Your Uncle said it wouldn't be fair for the Genie to stay in Uncle Scrooge's manor without someone from his side supporting him, so he sent you and your friend here." One of the triplets said briefly as they pulled themselves off the carpeted floor, Miranda and Elmo following afterwards as they watched the supernatural being already wandering around the mansion in curiosity. Miranda sighed and looked over at Scrooge's butler Duckworth, taking a moment to righten her appearance before speaking, her tone one of complete exhaustion yet still withheld as much patience as she could muster at that particular moment.

"Would it be at all trouble for my friend Elmo and me to stay here until Scrooge and my uncle return?" Miranda said politely, obviously surprising the butler at her patience as he nodded and asked a nearby maid to tell her and Elmo where their rooms were.

"Thank you." She said briefly to the butler as she and Elmo were lead through the large house, giving Miranda a good opportunity to inspect her surroundings of Scrooge's house, more so that she got to last time she was here. And still as always, it was quite the contrast.

The paintings on the walls down to the flowers in the vases that lined the walls just seemed to shine with more happiness and life than the blank walls and dying flowers of her 'home'.

"Miranda?" The teen duck turned to her only friend as he snapped her out of her thoughts, smiling happily before thanking the nearby maid for showing them their rooms before entering her own, Elmo surprising her by following her inside.

"Elmo? What are you doing?" She asked, watching as the rat teen blushed before going back into his room.

"I didn't mean that you had to leave." Miranda giggled to herself and flopped herself down on the bed, exhausted by the events of the past few days.

A few minutes, or hours Miranda didn't really have a clock on hand at the time, the teen duck was awoken from her small nap by a knocking from her door. Miranda was in the middle of deciding on whether or not to climb out of the comfortable bed to answer the door when it was opened.

"Hello?" Miranda opened one of her tired eyes to see a small girl duckling staring nervously back at her as she walked forward, the teen duck's wrath thankfully subdued as Miranda didn't want to yell at such a young child.

"Hello." Miranda said as she sat up in her bed, her black hair messily flown behind her back as she watched the duckling cautiously speak to her, obviously frightened that the teen would yell at her.

"Grammy says she doesn't have time to play dolls, and no one else in the house wants to either so I was just wondering if you wanted to." Miranda smiled at the child, mentally noting that this child had a ton of courage, considering how scary Miranda must have looked to her before nodding.

"Yeah, sure I'll play, I've got nothing else to do while I'm here." She said happily, following the child as she walked out of the room and into a lounge room downstairs where a basket of dolls and a large dollhouse were waiting. It was only when Miranda saw a nearby bed that she realised that this lounge room was actually the kid's bedroom.

_Jesus, I wonder what the actual Lounge room is like. _Miranda thought to herself as she helped the small duck set up her doll house, smiling as placed all the small furniture into the sides of the small house, following the child's very distinctive instructions of where everything went.

Eventually the house was finished and Miranda played with the girl for what felt like only a few minutes, so it was really surprising when the girl's grandma walked into the room to tell the girl that dinner was ready.

"Webby, dinner's ready, pack up your toys." The elderly duck said, completely ignoring Miranda altogether as the teen helped Webby clean the doll house and place everything back where it belonged.

Webby left the room first, leaving the nanny and Miranda a moment alone. Not really wanting to start a conversation with this complete stranger, Miranda attempted to go past the elderly duck, only to be stopped by her arm gripping her shoulder.

Miranda winced slightly in surprise but said nothing as the nanny spoke, not wanting to offend anyone while she stayed here.

"Stay away from my Granddaughter." Miranda frowned, insulted that this duck would think that she would ever hurt the small girl, but something else was currently annoying her as well that she decided to voice out.

"You are not the boss of me; I am here under Scrooges 'invitation' so I do not deserve this type of treatment from his staff." She said simply, her voice calm and neutral as she broke the woman's hold on her arm and went into the dining room where Elmo, and even more scorn was most likely waiting.

* * *

The next day Miranda decided to go to her Uncle's office in case anything had been scheduled before he left, making sure that a rather unwilling Elmo was forced to stay at the Mcduck Mansion so there was still a representative of her Uncle at the house.

Miranda walked quickly and purposely through the streets of Duckburg, taking a moment to glare back at passersby that dared to make eye contact. She was really not in the mood to talk to anyone after the night she had spent at the Mcduck Mansion. The constant scorn behind her back, the strange behaviour of Elmo coupled with her restless night as Miranda had been too busy thinking over the fact that there was actual magic in the world, effectively cutting down any and all things she thought she knew about the world around her.

Frowning as she finally walked into the long driveway of her home, her mind thankfully wandered off her recent brain teaser and onto how Miss Canary was, whether or not she had taken her medicine like the doctor told her, whether or not she wasn't doing the work all by herself like the now paroled Beagle Boys had promised that she wouldn't.

_Wait I trusted the Beagle Boys?! _Miranda's brain screamed as she started to run up the driveway and nearly kicked the front door down in fear of finding her nanny in worse condition than she left her.

"Hello?" Miranda yelled quickly to what she hoped wasn't a completely empty house as she ran from room to room, her suspicions nearly boiling over with each empty room that she passed.

She was about to run back into the main hall to call the police when she finally came across her mentor and Mama Beagle having tea in the garden, the female burglar's sons not that far away, snipping at the large thorn bushes surrounding them.

"Ah there you are Miranda, we thought you and weren't ever going to come back." Miss Canary said softly, her voice slightly wobbly but otherwise okay, relief flooded through Miranda as she knew from the tone of the elderly duck's voice that she had taken her medicine.

"Yeah? Yeah is the old coot anyhow?" Mama Beagle asked as she offered the teen duck a seat, who took it gladly, obviously still tired from her marathon through the house in the search of her mentor.

"It's a long story." Miranda said simply as she took the offered cup of tea, sparing a small wave to the grown men doing the large amount of impossible ward work. They growled but waved back, knowing better than to insult the teen in front of their mother.

"We have a lot of tea." Miss Canary said simply before taking a sip from her cup. Miranda smiled warmly at her nanny before starting in her story, the exact reasoning why she had come home had disappeared as she relaxed into her garden chair, surrounded by a willing audience as she told the events of the past few days. The Beagle Boys even stopped temporarily in their work in order to listen.

Eventually though Miranda was finished, her story also containing a small rant on how she hadn't known about magic even existing in the world. Mama Beagle smiled during this as she sipped her tea, letting the silence of the finished story take place for a few moments, content to feel the calm attitude of their situation before finally speaking.

"Get back to work, story's over!" She yelled at her sons, who immediately got back into their jobs, sparing only a glance at their mother's annoyed features before ignoring the trio at the garden table completely.

Miranda watched in silence for a moment, kind of impressed by the mother Beagle's control over her children before she noticed that Mama was actually talking to her.

"Sorry?" Miranda said apologetically as she gave the experienced burglar her full attention. Mama Beagle raised an eyebrow at the teen, clearly insulted that the girl had not listened the first time before repeating herself.

"I said, I happen to know a certain witch that lives in Duck burg, maybe I could pitch in a little suggestion for you to learn some hocus pocus?" Miranda grinned as the Beagle finished nodding excitedly as she answered her, not noticing the annoyed look Miss Canary was throwing her tea drinking partner.

"Really? Thank you so much!" Miranda practically squealed as she shook the experienced Burglars hand before jumping out of her seat and running into the house, surprising the two women sitting at the garden table.

"Where are you off to now?" Miss Canary said worryingly as Miranda stopped for a moment to answer her.

"I just remembered why I came here!" The teen answered back before running back through the house and into her Uncle's office, just as the phone started ringing.

Miranda walked towards it, about to answer it when her cell phone went off. Thinking that another business hound could wait she pulled out her cell phone to see who was calling.

"Money talks I listen." The teen said cheerfully as she left the office and wandered into her room, taking a moment to lock the door behind her and close the window, she certainly didn't want any certain Beagle Boys to attempt to listen into her conversation while they were working. Miranda jumped onto her bed, only just realizing exactly how tired she was from the events of the pass few days as her head briefly met her pillow. Unfortunately she did not get to experience this comfort for long as the person on the other side of the phone began to speak.

"Miranda? Could you please come back to the Mcduck Mansion? I think there's something you'll want to know." Elmo said simply from the other side of the Phone line, his voice clearly stressing to Miranda that she should hurry back as best as she could. Miranda sighed and sat up on her bed taking a moment to rethink on whether or not she should just call wrong number and go to sleep.

_Yeah like that'll work. _The teen duck thought to herself as she quickly jumped off her bed and went into the bathroom to freshen herself up.

"Okay Sparky, I'm leaving as we speak, by the way, can you make sure that all Glomgold calls are redirected to this Mobile? I wouldn't want any of Uncle's appointments lost while he's away." Miranda said quickly as she left the bathroom and walked out of her room, taking a moment to bid Miss Canary and Mama Beagle goodbye.

"Sure Miranda and thanks." With that Elmo hanged up. Miranda stared at the phone for a moment before shrugging and continuing to walk back to the hell best known as Mcduck Mansion.

* * *

Miranda knocked on the front door of the Mcduck manor a few times, waiting patiently as the door was eventually opened by Duckworth.

"Thank you um; Elmo said there was something I needed to see urgently?" She said politely to the dog who nodded and directed her to the Main Lounge room where Elmo was waiting and watching the triplets play some sort of racing game.

"Mr. Sputterspark, Miss Glomgold as returned." Duckworth said as Miranda walked into the room, taking a moment to thank the butler again before sitting on the floor beside the couch Elmo was currently lying on.

"What's wrong Sparky?" She said as the rat teen's frown lifted for a moment as he saw his friend before it lowered again.

"The Genie." He said simply as the triplets nearby frowned along with Elmo as they all spoke at once, their racing game apparently forgotten as they explained what exactly was happening.

"Yeah! The Genie is-"

"-Cheating at the race-"

"-By sending Uncle Scrooge and Glomgold back in time!" The triplets said together as Miranda frowned, obviously she believed them, after all she had seen the genie in action so she knew that this happening was going to be a possibility, but one thing didn't make sense to her.

"Why are you so upset about this?" Miranda asked the nearby distressed teen, who looked at her pointedly before answering.

"I care since your Uncle happens to be my boss, and without him I don't get paid!" Elmo said angrily as Miranda frowned.

"Is that all you care about? How about the fact that the one sent back in time is My Uncle, so far the only blood relative I know I have and you go off at me about not getting paid?" Miranda hissed as she stood and left the room, a rather confused teen and triplets behind.

* * *

Miranda glared at the wall of her temporary room, angry at Elmo, her Uncle, the Genie, basically anyone who came up in her mind that had done her wrong today whilst rethinking on exactly why she was pissed at them.

_Selfish Elmo_

_Selfish Genie _

_Selfish Uncle._

Miranda was starting to see a pattern.

A sudden knock on the door silenced Miranda's angry rant but did nothing for her attitude as she opened the door to a rather ashamed looking Elmo.

"Oh sorry, no money for you here." She said scathingly and was about to slam the door when his foot stopped it.

"Wait, Miranda I'm sorry." He said quickly, using his hand to push the door back open. Miranda glared at him and turned away, not really in the mood for his little apology as she really wanted to smack him one.

"Sorry about what? What would you have to be sorry about, of course you should be worried about money, not that, oh I don't know. The fact that two billionaires, no trillionaries have gone missing, people are going to be asking me what happened to them but I won't know what to say, I have to pay for Miss Canary's Medicals by myself since I don't know my Uncle's combination to his safe, I've lost the only blood relative I have but for some reason I'm not that really bothered by that and do you know why?" Miranda yelled at the poor teen, who could only shake his head as an answer.

"Because I don't even care about him that much, only Uncle I have, only family I have and yet I'm not even worried about him because I'm too angry at you to care!" She continued, not stopping for a second as she just let it all out, no longer caring if Elmo was there and listening fearfully, she just wanted to let someone know how pissed off she was at that moment.

"I'm angry that you're so selfish, that you don't care about what happens to my Uncle or to me for that matter, I'm also angry that you're so blind!" She finished, leaving Elmo to be completely confused by her last statement.

"Blind?" He asked, a little afraid as she then yelled back at him, her control over the volume of her voice apparently a thing of the past.

"Yeah! Blind that you can't see me the way I want you to! You're so busy wrapped up in your work you can't even see me when I'm talking to you or when we go out for ice cream, which by the way counts as a date in my book, hell I even told you how I felt once but you weren't even listening! I want you to be with me Dammit!" Elmo stared at her for a full minute as she turned away from him, his mind racing as he thought over what to do next. Finally Elmo Sputterspark made a decision for the first time in his life without thinking it over.

He walked over to Miranda, turned her to face him and kissed her.

Miranda stood there, frozen during the kiss, only able to move when Elmo finally pulled away. She was silent for a moment, looking Elmo in the eye with an expression that Elmo had never seen before.

Then she kissed him back.


	9. Chapter 8 part 2

**I own nothing but my Oc's, please enjoy.**

* * *

Miranda and Elmo sat together on the bed for some time in silence, neither saying a word to the other as they tried to process exactly what they should do next, eventually though The Glomgold managed to turn to her new admirer and speak, her unexpected voice nearly making the poor rat jump out of his skin.

"I think you might be getting a raise." Silence followed again before Elmo laughed and held the teen duck closer to him as he whispered in her ear, making her shiver a little bit.

"I think I prefer this allot more." He smiled and kissed her again, this kiss lasting allot longer than the other one as Miranda reacted perfectly in time with him, her arms slinging around his neck while he wrapped his arms around her waist, making her sit in his lap.

Eventually the kiss deepened as Miranda pushed the elder teen onto the bed, giving her the advantage as she lay on top of him. Her arms slipped away from around his neck and held onto each side of his face, her thumbs lightly brushing the fur on his cheeks.

Suddenly a knock on the door stopped the pair from going any further in their antics, jumping away from each other as the door was swinging open. The triplets walked in, completely oblivious of the teens' embarrassment as they held up the genie's lamp, smiling victoriously as Miranda could almost hear the small pleading voice of the genie from inside the brass object.

"We caught the genie in his bottle and he promised to return our Uncle's!" The duck in the blue shirt said happily as Miranda smiled, turning to see Elmo smiling along with her, the both of them carrying the same crooked smile as the rat spoke up.

"That's great, umm, I gotta go Miranda, if you're Uncle finds out I skipped work for a minute longer than usual...well you know." He said quickly as he left the room, leaving the rather confused triplets and embarrassed Miranda in his wake.

"What's wrong with him?" The red shirted duck asked, his thumb jerking towards the retreating teen rat. Miranda stood from the bed and checked her mobile, not the least bit surprised that there was a text from one of the beagle boys telling her to return to the mansion.

"Oh nothing, look, thanks for freeing my Uncle but I gotta run, see you when the race ends." She said, her retreat from the room exactly mirroring the rat before her. The triplets also watched her leave with confused uncertainty before shrugging to each other.

"Teenagers." They said simply before looking down at the lamp in their green shirted brother's hands, the lamp jittering every which way as the genie spoke out.

"How would you know?"

* * *

Miranda had spent the next few days alone in the Glomgold mansion, her only company being the continuous texts she received from Elmo as he worked. Apparently he always had to work overtime at the labs and was very adamant that Miranda shouldn't visit him as he was 'very busy.' Now Miranda might not be the brightest light bulb in the set but she knew when someone was trying to avoid her.

So now the teen was sitting worryingly on her bed, thinking over what she might have done during the kiss or after wards that might have led him to avoid her. Did she insult him by pulling away when the kids entered? Was she too pushy to deepen the kiss? She wasn't really sure.

Miranda looked over the past texts Elmo had sent her before sighing and throwing the phone on the bed, giving herself a once over in the full length mirror across the room before frowning, she wasn't sure what she did wrong but she wasn't just going to sit here and wait for an answer, she had to go get it herself.

The teen Glomgold stood up from her bed and quickly got dressed into a quick black t shirt and faded blue jeans, taking a moment to look at her appearance again before adding some quick perfume and washing her face, she was never really one to pamper herself but she felt like adding something to her appearance. Quickly, Miranda put on her white sneakers and walked out of her room, almost walking right past Miss Canary, who was washing the dishes in the kitchen.

Miranda walked back into the kitchen, giving her mentor a quick hug before stealing an apple for m the fruit bowl and turning back to leave, her nanny's voice stopping her just as she reached the door.

"Nice to see your moping stage is over, where are you off to today?" Miranda sighed; knowing that her mentor was of course going to know when she was the least bit upset, there was nothing she could really hide from the elderly bird. Miranda turned and smiled back at her as she started to walk out.

"Just going to check on Elmo at his work place, you know, the usual." She said in the happiest voice she could fake at the moment before biting into her apple, waving the elderly maid goodbye and walking off.

"Knew it." The nanny mumbled to herself as she continued in her cleaning, smiling to herself all the while.

* * *

Miranda walked quickly through the streets of Duckburg, not giving a passing glance to the slightest soul as her sights where set on the major Glomgold building, the shiny building towering over the small city, but was short stuff compared to the Mcduck Money Bin on the hill beyond.

Personally Miranda always hated the thought of the Money Bin towering over the town, as if she didn't see enough of the elderly duck's power in her life she had to have it directly shoved in her face. The teen duck quickly went over the intricate security systems of the Money Bin in her mind as she walked into her Uncle's building, giving the briefest of welcomes to the grumpy receptionist as she quickly ran to the closing elevator, only just managing to squeeze herself through the doors in time.

"Just made it" She muttered to herself as she waited patiently for the elevator to get to her friend's floor, ignoring the strange looks she was receiving from the other elevator occupant as she waited. Eventually the elevator dinged and opened up to the floor she desired, Miranda walked out, not even glancing back at the other workers in the elevator as she walked towards Elmo's lab and office, not even taking the time to knock, she rather loudly opened the lab's doors.

The rat in question jumped out of his skin as he heard the sound of the door slamming open behind him and whipped around to see who would be so aggravating enough to interrupt him while he was working, and blushed a tomato red when he saw it was Miranda.

"O-oh Hi Miranda." He said quietly, the electric wire he had been working on suddenly squeezed rather tightly in his rigid hand, not noticing that the wire was still connected the electric conductor he had set up before hand.

Miranda opened her beak to say something but was interrupted as Elmo yelled out in pain, his hand immediately letting the wire hit the floor as he inspected the burn it had caused. The duck sighed and walked over to her friend, taking him by the other hand as she lead him to his office where she knew he kept a first aid kit.

"Honestly Sparky, you claim to be an electrics expert but every time I turn around in this lab you're either burning yourself or setting your suitcase on fire." She mumbled as she sat him down on the desk, taking a moment to look around before pulling the first aid kit out of the desk drawers.

"That only happened once." The teen rat mumbled in self defense, his head bowed in embarrassment all the same. Miranda smiled and pulled out the cooling gel and bandages from the kit, taking the rat's hand in hers as she started placing the gel on the burn.

Elmo hissed at the stinging sensation but said nothing else, watching Miranda as she treated his wound, his expression unreadable. Miranda soon put the gel away and began to bandage the wound, not noticing when the teen's other hand started stroking her hair, or maybe she did, and just didn't comment on it.

"There all done," The teen duck was about to let go of the hand before thinking twice on it and kissing the bandaged hand briefly, listening as the rat's breath caught in his throat. Deciding not to stop there Miranda placed a kiss on the rat's neck, continuing up from there before she finally managed to reach Elmo's lips.

The elder rat closed his eyes, unable to fight her off as Miranda turned a little aggressive in the kiss, her arms slinking around the rat's middle while his free uninjured hand found itself on the small of her back.

They might have gone a little further in their exploits but were suddenly cut short by the familiar ring tone of Miranda's cell phone. The teen duck groaned in anger, not wanting to pull away from this experience but also knowing at the same time that it probably was her Uncle, asking her where she was and why she wasn't supporting him in his win against Mcduck. Miranda let go of Elmo, his expression on of guilt as his hand let go of her back. Miranda just gave him a solid look and kissed him as hard she could, his muffled surprise made notable as he was pushed back into his desk.

Miranda pulled away then and smirked, her voice cutting through the silence the kiss had caused.

"We'll continue this later, but only if you promise not to ignore me again." Elmo nodded quickly, his hand quickly slinking around her waist as he pulled her close and kissed her back. Miranda yelped and giggled in response before finally pulling away and walking out of the office, her now considered boyfriend following after her.

The teen duck quickly whipped out her phone and checked to see who disturbed their moment only to sigh as she saw it was her mentor Miss Canary.

"Hello, Wait-really? Okay I'll be there as soon as I can." Miranda then hung up the phone and walked out of the lab, giving a moment to turn back to Elmo and smiled at him.

"You coming? Cause I don't feel like being alone right now." Elmo smiled and walked after her, his arm slipping back around her waist as they left the lab.

* * *

They walked quickly through the streets of Duckburg together, hand in hand as Miranda didn't want any of her Uncle's employers to tell him exactly how close she and his electronics expert really were. Elmo didn't really argue against this as he knew from first hand exactly how fast could fire a person, one day your there, the next you're as poor as trash as no company would hire you.

Miranda was still chatting away to her mentor on the phone as they walked, taking a moment to smirk at some offhand comment the teen rat would make, he liked making her laugh.

Eventually they reached their destination, Elmo raising an eyebrow at the Ice Cream parlour sign before turning back to his girlfriend, who shrugged as she explained.

"This was the agreed finish line." Elmo decided not to question it and they both entered, not noticing the elderly duck sitting in the corner with the genie's lamp until it was too late and they had said a mite too much in the circumstances.

"Well maybe we could get an ice-cream while we wait." Miranda said, looking over at Elmo who grinned.

"Yeah, how about a strawberry kiss?" Miranda giggled, but the elderly duck in the corner did not seem to find it as funny as the pair in front of him.

"Oh will ye' now?" Elmo and Miranda froze, looking over the duck. Miranda pointedly then chose to stare at the floor, her counterpart however seemed lost for words as his face went a deeper red than usual.

"M-mr. Glomgold, we thought the genie dragged you back in time." Miranda notably coughed and took a moment to lift her eyesight from the floor to Elmo's startled expression to explain.

"Actually Miss Canary just told me that the genie freed both him and Mr. Mcduck." She said quietly while her caregiver crossed his arms, not at all amused with how close the pair were being.

"And it looks as though I've arrived too late. Takin' advantage of my disappearance eh laddie?" Glomgold slipped out of his chair and pointedly poked the teen in the chest with his cane, Elmo winced and backed away, Miranda stepping quickly in front of him before her Uncle could continue.

"Uncle stop it, it's not his fault." Her uncle just transferred his heated glare from the lanky teen onto his niece, his cane lowering notably to his side as he only continued in his tirade.

"I kne' I shouldn't have hired that rat! But I learn from my mistakes," He pointed over at the rat again, his Scottish growl only deepening in anger, "Ye're fired, pack your stuff and leave my office."

Elmo's face went from beet red to deathly pale at the thought of being unemployed once again. The teen lowered his head, not arguing back as he didn't want to prompt the elderly duck to further his punishment.

Miranda however, was furious and yelled at her Uncle as he walked back to his seat. However it seemed that it didn't matter how loud or angry she sounded, it didn't seem to change her Uncle's mind. Elmo just sighed, knowing that he had better leave now before something else horrid could happen today.

The teen duck didn't notice Elmo was gone until she heard the tinkling of the shop's bell as the door slowly shut behind him. Miranda whirled around, hurt to see that her only friend had left already without saying goodbye. Glomgold however, just took one look at the empty space that use to contain the lanky teen and sneered, speaking up for the first time since his dismissal of his former electronics expert.

"Hmph, not allot of fight in that boy is there." Miranda didn't bother looking back at her uncle as she responded, her own voice now leveled, both anger and sadness had left her tired form.

"There usually isn't when the person you're up against could repossess your house." With that she walked out of the shop, her Uncle doing nothing to stop her as he waited for his opponent to arrive, ready to accept his reward.

* * *

She wasn't really sure why she had returned to her Uncle's office, maybe she was hoping to find Elmo there and convince him not to let her Uncle push him around. But she had already passed his empty office, taking a moment to curse the efficiency of the cleaners in the building, her Uncle most likely calling them to clean out Elmo's office after she had left.

Miranda walked round the office building for the next few hours, no specific destination in mind as she had no where she wanted to be. Her phone had been going off the entire time, but she just ignored it, not really wanting to talk to anyone.

Eventually though the ringtone started to get on her nerves so she answered it, snapping at the person on the other end before thinking.

"What!"

"Well, if that's how you show respect to someone who's using their free time on you then there's little point in continuing." With that the person hang up. Miranda moved the phone from her ear and stared at the offending object before shrugging and shoving the device back into her pocket.

"Whatever." She muttered angrily as she walked faster through the building towards the exit, deciding the faster she left this place, the better she would feel.

After all, what else could go wrong today?

However as she left the elevator and walked into the reception, everything started to visually sway and wobble until Miranda could barely see straight, The teen duck could feel her insides tightening painfully as her surroundings practically flipped over before completely disappearing in a flash of bright hot light...

* * *

**I wish I never found this lamp!**

**You're wish is my command!**

* * *

_Miranda..._

_Miranda..._

"Miranda!" The teen snapped out of her daze and turned to see Elmo looking at her expectantly, his hands covering his head as he awaited the explosion from 's TNT.

"Sorry, what were you saying?" She mumbled as she looked around her, trying to remember why she was so angry all of a sudden. Elmo sighed and repeated himself, his words seemingly very familiar t the teen duck.

"I said your Uncle is going to kill us all!" The rat squeaked, Miranda shook her head, all thoughts on why she had spaced out leaving her as she answered, covering her hears and gesturing for Elmo to do the same.

"Don't worry," She yelled so he could hear her, "Uncle knows what he's doing."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Elmo answered simply.

Just then a large explosion went off, random rocks fell off the sides of the ledge as Miranda looked over the top of their hiding place, making sure that her uncle was okay before standing and practically dragging her friend over to the new entrance of the cave, taking a moment to take in its surroundings before sitting Elmo on a rock nearby.

"You okay?" she said, her hand briefly touching the elder teens cheek as he looked up at her, his eyes telling her immediately that he was only a little shaken, but otherwise okay. Miranda smiled and was about to go join her Uncle in the cave when Elmo's hand stopped her. Thinking that he was worried for her getting hurt or something like that Miranda gave his hand a slight squeeze before walking into the cave, just in time to see her Uncle run out, followed immediately by Mr. Mcduck.

"What in the world..." she muttered before she was nearly shoved to the ground by the richest duck's nephews, none of them sparing her a glance as she fell, Elmo luckily catching her before she could be seriously hurt.

"Little brats." Elmo muttered as he helped her righten herself again. Miranda just shrugged it off and watched the five ducks run down the mountain, the two elderly ducks practically nearly at the jet Uncle Glomgold had procured in order to get them here.

"Come on," she sighed, getting ready for another trek down the monstrous mountain. Elmo frowned but followed, neither of them noticing the lamp hidden in the cave behind them as they went after their employer/Uncle.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

* * *

The flight back home had been tiring, not the hike down the mountain to the jet had helped at all in Miranda's exhaustion but at least they were all back in Duckburg. After watching the Mcduck clan, who had demanded a flight home in the same jet for all the trouble her Uncle had caused Scrooge, drive off in their own car Miranda turned back to her rat friend.

"Hey thanks for coming with, even though nothing really happened. I'll pay you back tomorrow kay?" Elmo smiled and nodded before joining her and his employer in their car, the limo quickly dropping him and Miranda off at the office building at their request.

"And I want ye' home before the sun sets, you hear me Miranda." Her Uncle warned as he quickly winded up the window before she could reply, the limo taking off just as fast.

The pair were left to cough uncomfortably in the dust the car left behind before together walking into the office, sparing a quick greeting to the grumpy receptionist before squeezing their way into the elevator, each of them out daring each other in making the other laugh until finally the elevator landed on Elmo's floor, the other occupants of the elevator more than happy to see the strange pair leave.

"So, you're working late again?" She said as they walked into the lab, Miranda quickly putting back on the lab coat and glasses that the rat always demanded she wore.

"Yeah. Hey can you please go to the plant bio lab, they need their light bulbs replaced but they haven't emailed back exactly how many." Miranda grinned, taking a random notebook form his work bench and left, leaving the rat to work.

Miranda was still a little exhausted from the events of the past few days but managed to not let it get to her as she entered the plant bio lab. Upon entering she was a little surprised to see that all of the lights were out, keeping the windowless room in complete darkness.

"Hello?" She called into the darkness, not moving any further into the room as she didn't want to walk into any benches and...You know, horror movies had told her different about walking right into a dark room without either turning on the light first or checking if anyone was really in there.

The teen moved her hand quickly across the wall next to the door until she felt something under hand that felt like a light switch and was about to flick it when she felt a hand on her shoulder dragging her away from the door.

She was about to scream for help when a voice managed to stop her, a small desk lamp being turned on to calm her down.

"Please don't turn on the light, those plants are being tested. Here." After the person had turned on the lamp he let Miranda go so she could see who grabbed her. Miranda turned and saw the duck she had talked to not that long ago.

"Reggie? Man don't scare me like that." She said as Reggie sat at the desk, taking the offered chair with relief. She looked around the dimly lit lab and frowned, wondering why a plant lab wouldn't have any windows to them.

"Sorry, but if this experiment fails then my work for the past few months will be wasted." Miranda raised an eyebrow at this and questioned him further.

"What would happen then?" She pressed on as the duck took his glasses of, revealing just how tired- and yet young, he really was.

"Then will replace me. It's not as if my job is all that important but he really does like having young fresh minds working for him, ones that aren't demanding that much of course. Already I've been informed of the long list of replacements that could take my place if I fail." Miranda nodded in understanding, thinking back to Elmo and wondering briefly if he was under this sort of strain. Always forced to succeed, and if the slightest doubt arises, it's replaced.

Sometimes her Uncle could really tick her off.

"Maybe you could talk to him, have him give me some more time to work on this?" Miranda frowned and sadly shook her head.

"I'm sorry Reggie; I'm no good at convincing my Uncle of anything. I will try talking to him for you, but I can't promise anything." Despite her apologetic tone, Reggie looked rather happy and even shook her hand.

"Oh, thank you, thank you Miss Glomgold. Not many people in this building like to help each other, it's kind of like a rat race here." He continued shaking her hand while he spoke, Miranda smiling sadly as he spoke, his tone one of enthusiasm as he let go of her hand, leaving the pair in dimly lit silence before he spoke up again.

"Sorry but you where here for something weren't you Miss Glomgold?" Miranda nodded but corrected him quickly, not really liking how 'Miss Glomgold' sounded.

"Yeah and just call me Miranda, Miss makes me feel old." Reggie nodded, blushing at his mistake which Miranda quickly waved off so as not to embarrass him.

"But yeah, Elmo Sputterspark sent me down here for a light bulb repair; he wants to know how many need to ne repaired." Reggie sighed and took the notebook Miranda handed to him and quickly scribbled a few words before handing it back, showing me the way back out of lab, his last complaint for the day just amusing the teenager.

"Really that's what's just weird about his company; the electronics expert has to write the repairs." He smirked at the end, reassuring to Miranda that he was of course joking as she started walking towards the elevator that would take her back to Elmo's lab.

"Yeah, I'll see you around Reggie, Promise this time." With that the teen left, leaving the duck once again alone with his plants.

"It has to work, my whole life I've been working towards this. I have to be right." He muttered to himself as he sat back at his dimly lit desk, peering into one of the many microscopes that he hoped could prove his theory.

* * *

After giving Elmo the notebook and offering to get him some ice cream tomorrow, Miranda returned back to her ever so welcoming home.

"I'm home, and of course no one cares." She muttered to herself as she walked through the empty halls of Glomgold Mansion, Miss Canary having spent the night on her 'bingo binges' as Miranda liked to call them, the Beagle boys were doing time for some reason or another, really Miranda had really lost count how many times they'd spent time behind bars.

And as for her Uncle, Miranda had no idea, and really she didn't care anymore. Whatever deals he was making, whatever money he was swindling, Miranda could really care less. Or at least that's what she tells herself as she flops on her bed, exhausted.

She closed her eyes; ready more than anything to just sleep, for some reason even though not that much happened today, Miranda was just as exhausted as she was when she got of the jet.

And then she heard the phone ring.

Opening her eyes again, Miranda groaned, not wanting to answer the stupid thing, but at the same time knowing that if she didn't she'd probably get an earful later. Miranda quickly jumped off her bed and ran after the sound of the phone, groaning angrily when she saw her uncle's office door. But instead of whining and being pitiful Miranda opened the door and picked up the phone, just as the last ring went off.

"Hello?"

"Miranda? It's me, your mother. I want to see you."

* * *

**Okay that's all I got today. Please Review, Constructive criticism welcome.**


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